Reforms in the e-justice and service provision sectors

The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, attaching importance to the necessity of public awareness about the activities carried out in the sectors of provision of state services and e-justice, presents the activities carried out in the above-mentioned sectors in 2017-2018.

In particular:

(1)    in 2017, www.e-draft.am unified website for publication of legal acts’ drafts was introduced as a tool for electronic democracy ensuring an active mechanism for organising on-line public discussions on draft regulatory legal acts and summarising the recommendations submitted by civil society aimed at reducing corruption risks, ensuring public participation in lawmaking activities of the State and organising a process of developing draft legal acts that will be more open, transparent and accountable. The statistics available on the website show that there is currently an unprecedented increase in the number of people who have visited the website — more than 3000 a day, and this attests to the fact that the website is an active mechanism for ensuring participatory processes. It is worth mentioning the fact that in April, the website had 112.977 visitors.

(2)    www.e-penitentiary.am electronic governance system — "Information Register for Detained Persons and Convicts" — has been developed and introduced; the system includes necessary documents on detained persons and convicts, medical files and other necessary information.

(3)    the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has carried out activities for modernisation of the e-notary electronic system, and as a result, the functions of the e-notary electronic system and the scope of services provided to citizens by electronic means have been expanded. Activities have also been carried out to combine the State Register Agency of Legal Entities of the Staff of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia with the Civil Status Acts Registration electronic system and the electronic governance systems of the Police of the Republic of Armenia. As a result of modernisation of the system, the scope of notarial activities provided on-line has been expanded, the system of on-line listing has been enhanced, and an opportunity for sending certain on-line inquiries to the notary has been created.

(5)    www.e-hotline.am on-line hotline has been introduced by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and is currently in the phase of piloting; the aim of the on-line hotline is to improve the quality of services provided by relevant sub-divisions of the Ministry of Justice, resolve sector-specific issues, as well as make sure that the provision of services of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia to the public is a process that is open, transparent, participatory and a process in which there is accountability.

(6)    The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has also introduced the www.e-apostille.am electronic apostille system, which provides the opportunity to accept applications for certification of documents by apostille by electronic means and allows the competent body of the State to check the validity of the submitted apostilles on-line.

(7)    the www.e-request.am unified portal for online requests, run by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, has been introduced by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and is currently in the phase of piloting, with the help of which citizens can submit their requests, applications or complaints to the state authorities disposing of information and receive the answers online within the prescribed time limit.

(8)    currently, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia is carrying out activities to study the international experience and develop technical specifications in order to modernise the www.e.petition.am electronic system for petitions, the www.e-court.am unified electronic system of courts and the www.arlis.am Armenian Legal Information System, as well as introduce the www.e-bancruptcy.am electronic platform for bankruptcy administrators.

(9)    the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has developed a plan to introduce training courses on legal instruments at higher education institutions, and joint steps are being taken by the Ministry of Justice and higher education institutions for introduction of the training courses.

(10)  About 67 services (including the services provided by the State Register Agency of Legal Entities, the State Unified Cadastre of Real Estate, Civil Status Acts Registration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, the Road Police of the Republic of Armenia, etc.) provided by the State upon Decision of the Government No 1109-N of 27 October 2016 "On approving the list of operators performing the functions of the service offices of public administration bodies, outsourcing the implementation of functions to the operator, approving the list of functions and establishing the standard form of the contract for provision of services signed with the operator and setting the minimum technical requirements for operator" have been outsourced to the operators implementing the functions of service offices. In the same month, the total number of operators increased, reaching 9, and in May 2018, 2,883 services were provided by operators. At the same time, the total number of service offices increased from May 2017 to May 2018, reaching 164, 58 of which are located in Yerevan, and 106 — in the provinces of the Republic of Armenia.

(11)   The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia has developed the draft Law of the Republic of Armenia "On making an amendment to the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On state registration of legal entities, state record-registration of separated subdivisions of legal entities, institutions and individual entrepreneurs" and the related legislative package, the amendments proposed whereby are aimed at modernising and ensuring availability of the services provided by the State Register for each person using the service, from any place and at any time, ensuring also the opportunity to provide non-hard copies of official information. The package proposes to fully carry out the process of state registration of legal entities electronically, providing the opportunity to apply on-line for all registrations.

(12)   Draft laws of the Republic of Armenia "On making amendments and supplements to the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On licensing"", "On making amendments and supplements to the Law of the Republic of Armenia "On notification about carrying out activities"" and "On making amendments to the Law of the Republic of Armenia “On state duty"" have been adopted, based on which activities for introducing the www.e-license.am website of unified electronic registers of licenses and piloting are being carried out within the relevant government agencies of the Republic of Armenia.

(13)   Decision No 350 "On establishing the procedure for electronic submission of documents prescribed by law between courts and the Judicial Acts Compulsory Enforcement Service" has been developed by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and approved by the Government of the Republic of Armenia, as a result of which courts are provided with the opportunity to submit documents prescribed by law electronically to the Judicial Acts Compulsory Enforcement Service, significantly reducing paper document circulation in the judicial process and ensuring timely and effective connection between courts and the Judicial Acts Compulsory Enforcement Service.