Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan visits "Armavir" Penitentiary Institution

On 12 August, Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan toured "Armavir" Penitentiary Institution along with Chair of the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly Vladimir Vardanyan, Deputy Maria Karapetyan and Head of the Penitentiary Service Artur Goyunyan.

During the tour at the Penitentiary Institution with the accompaniment of Head of "Armavir" Penitentiary Institution Gerasim Gevorgyan, the Minister and Deputies became familiar with the conditions for keeping of convicts, the opportunities for and problems with primary healthcare of convicts at the Penitentiary Institution, as well as the menu and the conditions for preparing food.

During the tour, Minister Badasyan had a meeting with life-sentenced convicts who wanted to talk to him, listened to their concerns that were mainly related to the reopening of criminal cases, proper application of the institution of conditional early release, specification for application of the new regulation to change the type of correctional institution, as well as the procedure for preparation of reports by the Penitentiary Service and the Probation Service on conditional early release from serving punishment and on replacement of the unserved part of the punishment with a milder punishment.

The Minister informed that there is no power reserved to the Ministry of Justice in the legal grounds for review of cases and, consequently, having an expectation from the Ministry of Justice in regard to that is unrealistic. As far as the issues related to the competences of the Ministry are concerned, Rustam Badasyan assured that specific actions will be taken to improve the institution of conditional early release and to make the regulation for changing the type of correctional institution more flexible.