Under the leadership of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the activity report 2023 of the Office of the Representative on International Legal Matters of the Prime Minister’s Office was discussed.
The Head of the Office, Yeghishe Kirakosyan, reported on the comparative analysis of the complaints communicated by the ECHR to the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the work done, as well as the comparative analysis of complaints communicated under the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2022-2023. Details were also presented regarding the procedure for forming the position of the Armenian government in connection with the communicated complaint.
In connection with the implementation of judgments and rulings, it was noted that general and individual measures aimed at the implementation of ECHR judgments/rulings were implemented, cooperation was developed with domestic concerned bodies in order to solve the recorded problems, information was presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Ministers, awareness raising measures of ECHR judgments/rulings was carried out. It was noted that within the framework of violations recorded by the ECHR judgments supervised by the Committee of Ministers of the CoE, there are cases supervised by a strict procedure and cases supervised by a standard procedure.
It was reported to the Prime Minister that during the reporting period, the first bulletin of ECHR case law was published, which includes summaries of the most important cases of ECHR for the period of 2018-2020. The second bulletin on ECHR case law has also been published. According to the report, the research and preparation work on the third manual is in progress, which will be dedicated to case reopenings based on ECHR judgment or ruling at the domestic level and their practical features.
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In the framework of legislation improvement and international cooperation, the Office provided legal positions on 73 legal acts drafts and presented relevant recommendations, 4 legal acts drafts were developed, which were adopted according to the established procedure, 5 courses were organized and implemented (CoE, EU, UN).
An exchange of ideas on individual points of the report took place, observations and recommendations were presented about the work done by the Office and what needs to be done in the future.
Nikol Pashinyan inquired whether there is a mechanism by which, as a result of rulings and judgments of the ECHR, similar problems will be excluded in the Republic of Armenia in the future. In response, Yeghishe Kirakosyan noted that it is the format of the interdepartmental commission, which is the best mechanism in that regard. Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan in his turn added. “All competent bodies are participating, including the judicial system with its chambers, and we are discussing the scenarios for eliminating the reasons one by one in terms of trial dates. As a result of the last session, a large protocol was drawn up regarding the actions to be taken to eliminate the reasons.”
Nikol Pashinyan also spoke about the fact that, in the long run, the judgments of the ECHR are also an indicator of how the reforms are progressing and how they are implemented. Nikol Pashinyan noted that the presumption is not that if there is no judgment of the ECHR, no one deals with these issues, but on the other hand, it is a view from another side, which, according to Nikol Pashinyan, can be useful in practical work. According to the Prime Minister, one way or another, every judgment has its own content, that is, there may be issues that will be addressed, there may be issues that will not be addressed.
The Prime Minister noted that the Government of the Republic of Armenia should understand what it is being accused of, why it is being accused, and what it should do to avoid such accusations in the future, especially given that the ECHR is a structure that obviously enjoys absolute reputation both in Armenia and in Europe in general, which is also a resource for the implementation of reforms of the Government.
Nikol Pashinyan added that when it was decided that such an office should be created in the Prime Minister’s staff, one of its substantiations was that this office should be in the center, so that signals would go from here to departments and institutions. According to the Prime Minister, this logic was set and this logic should not only be strengthened, but also go into automated mode. Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that intensive work should be done in that direction.
INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
