Ministry of Justice presented new electronic tools for electronic democracy and participation

On 9 February, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia presented at the Armenian General Benevolent Union the activities that the Ministry carried out in 2017 to establish a participatory, reliable and transparent system of governance by means of electronic tools.

Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Davit Harutyunyan, Chief of Staff of the Government of the Republic of Armenia Vahe Stepanyan, Head of the European Union Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Switalski, Acting Resident Coordinator of UNDP Armenian office Dmitry Mariyasin, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Suren Qrmoyan, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Smbat Sairyan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Government Vahe Jilavyan and others participated in the event.

According to Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Davit Harutyunyan, modernisation of the public administration system of Armenia has been and continues to be in the centre of attention of the Government, demonstrating proper consistency with regard to introducing electronic democracy and electronic participatory tools. Referring to the electronic governance projects introduced and currently being successfully operated in the electronic justice sector with the support of the European Union, namely the www.e-hotline.am electronic hot line of the Ministry of Justice and the unified portal for electronic requests at www.e-request.am, Minister Harutyunyan emphasised that they are modern and innovative tools for democracy and participatory governance and are aimed at fighting against corruption.

Head of the European Union Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Switalski, who was present at the event, congratulated the participants for making another important step in the electronic justice sector and noted that, for many countries, Armenia should serve as an example of how it was possible to achieve success with limited financial resources and thanks to human capital.

During the event, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Suren Krmoyan presented the projects introduced in the sector of electronic justice and aimed at ensuring transparency of the activities of the state, reduction of corruption risks, increase of accessibility, as well as high quality and efficiency of the services provided by state bodies. According to the Deputy Minister, the Ministry of Justice has launched the www.e-hotline.am hotline website, which has helped create an on-line flexible mechanism for more operative response to the issues, complaints and requests raised by citizens, organisations and other persons concerned.

Suren Krmoyan also referred to the unified platform for electronic requests at www.e-request.am, which provides the opportunity to send an application, request or complaint  to the state bodies having the information on-line, receive the response on-line and, at the same time, submit an opinion on the content of the response provided by a state body and on the time of provision thereof, based on which statistics are compiled.

According to Suren Krmoyan, one of the best and revolutionary steps in electronic democracy was the launch of the unified website for publication of draft legal acts at www.e-draft.am, a platform that has more than 3,000 visitors every day.

The Deputy Minister also expressed gratitude to the European Union Delegation, the United Nations Development Programme and all partners, who assist in the implementation of key reforms within the public administration system and for ongoing assistance provided for the activities to create the mentioned projects.

Suren Krmoyan emphasised that the Ministry of Justice would continue making efforts aimed at modernising the public administration system and forming a transparent, participatory and efficient governance system through the application of electronic governance tools.