Director of Programme Co-ordination of the Council of Europe Claus Neukirch and Deputy Minister of Justice Levon Balyan familiarise themselves with the educational centre of Probation beneficiaries opened in Ararat Marz; the Council of Europe to continue supporting the Probation Service in the issues related to capacity-building

Deputy Minister of Justice Levon Balyan, Director of Programme Co-ordination of the CoE Claus Neukirch and Head of the CoE Office in Armenia Martina Schmidt, accompanied by Head of the Probation Service Gevorg Simonyan toured in the professional training centre of the Probation Service opened in Ararat Marz. Levon Balyan stated that the close co-operation between the Ministry of Justice and the Council of Europe has a history of many years during which, the support rendered in almost all directions of the justice sector had visible results. Balyan highlighted the significance of the reforms implemented by the Ministry in probation and penitentiary sectors. Particularly, within the framework of the reforms in the probation sector, a number of steps were performed with the support of the European Council; among them, a legislative analysis was performed, recommendations were presented, based on which the corresponding legislative package was developed, activities were carried out aimed at formation of the "e-probation" system, the toolkit of risks and needs assessment of probation beneficiaries was improved, the awareness level regarding the probation institute was increased.

Levon Balyan attached importance to the re-socialisation programmes implemented for the probation beneficiaries, as a result of which the probation beneficiary will further be able to integrate into the society and enter the labour market without obstacles.

During the tour, Director of Programme Co-ordination of the CoE Claus Neukirch familiarised himself with the activities of the Centre and talked with the probation beneficiaries.

Claus Neukirch informed that the Council of Europe would continue supporting the Probation Service in the issue related to capacity building.