Minister of Justice presents achievements of post-revolutionary Armenia to Czech colleagues

Today, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Artak Zeynalyan received the delegation headed by Chairperson of the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Issues of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Head of the Czech Republic-Armenia Friendship Group Marek Benda.

Minister Zeynalyan expressed his gratitude to the Czech colleagues for ratification of the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement by the Parliament of the Czech Republic and emphasised that there is great potential to enhance the co-operation between the two countries.

Head of the Delegation Marek Benda expressed his gratitude to the Minister for the reception and asked about the reforms implemented in Armenia and particularly in the judicial sector after the non-violent, velvet revolution of 2018 and the upcoming projects.

According to Artak Zeynalyan, the revolution took place, as the electoral institutions were not functioning and power was not established by the will of the people. The Minister set aside the conduct of two big elections as the biggest achievement of the revolution, and all the people trusted and believed in the results of those two big elections. Touching upon the reforms envisaged in the judicial sector, Artak Zeynalyan set aside enhancement of access and efficiency of the judicial power, as well as ensuring of the right to fair trial.

The Minister also informed that the law-enforcement practice of selecting detention as a measure of restraint, the confinement conditions and quality of food at penitentiary institutions, the state of freedom of press, etc. have improved during the past year. Artak Zeynalyan also emphasised that the economy is currently liberalised, no businessman enjoys protectionism, it takes 15-30 minutes to register a business in the Republic of Armenia, and it is possible to carry out registration in the offices of operators providing state services operating in communities as well. Within this context, the Minister also informed that a sharp increase in registration of business has been recorded.

During the meeting, a number of issues related to transitional justice, introduction of the institution of non-conviction based on civil forfeiture of illegal assets were also discussed.