Armenia- Judicial System under Fire
19:02, May 6, 2015 | News, Own news | Right to Fair TrialWilly Fautré – the representative of HRWF writes- January 2015, the United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) examined Armenia’s human rights record in the light of the country’s national report, the submissions of domestic and foreign NGOs and the reports of various UN mechanisms.
The United States (US) representative said she was seriously concerned about systemic corruption and the absence of an independent judiciary. Her position was supported by several other countries such as Canada, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Namibia.
In April, Human Rights Without Frontiers met the chairman of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, Avetik Ishkhanyan, and collected information from other Armenian NGOs. All of them pointed at the main systemic problem: the lack of separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers and consequently the lack of independence of the judiciary without which there cannot be any sustainable progress in the field of human rights.
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor is working on two cases of violation of the right to a fair trial, which are presented in the Report.