On 11 December, 2023, the presentation and discussion of 11 advisory opinions approved by the EU-Armenia Civil Society Platform took place.
RA Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan, Head of the European Union Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Vasilis Maragos, RA Deputy Minister of Justice Karen Karapetyan, RA Deputy Minister of Economy Rafael Gevorgyan, Co-Chair of the EU-Armenia Civil Society Platform Lusine Hakobyan spoke at the discussion.
The advisory opinions related to various fields developed within the framework of the activities of the EU-RA civil society platform were presented. A discussion related to it was held with the participation of the interested bodies.
One of the advisory opinions was about the Legislative Initiative Regulating the Probation Service, which was authored by lawyer Marat Atovmyan, a Board Member of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association. According to the opinion, the agenda of the sixth session of the National Assembly included the Draft Laws “On Amendments to the Law on Public Service” and “On Amendments and Amendments to the Law on Probation”, which envisage a new type of the probation service. According to the author, this draft is very worrying. The draft regulations, including the provision of the probation service as a separate type of public service, do not derive from the state policy implemented in the field of public service, in addition, the cornerstone circumstance necessary to provide a separate type of public service is missing, namely, the existence of such exceptional functional features that excludes the activity of the relevant body in the civil service system.
It should also be emphasized that this draft has not been submitted to a public discussion with the legal, expert and professional community, as well as specialized CSOs.
In the framework of the discussion, ALA President Mr. Karen Zadoyan presented his concerns as well. He asked Mr. Levon Balyan, the Deputy Ministry of Justice, Coordinator of the field proposing to inform whether a study of international experience, an analysis of the situation in Armenia, as well as mapping of the situation in Armenia , which would provide evidence-based justifications for the need of making these changes were carried out during the development of the mentioned legal acts. In response, the Deputy Minister noted that no international experience was studied. Moreover, the drafts of legal acts have not passed a public discussion with the participation of professional organizations and experts, and in fact these drafts do not have a public consensus.
ALA is very concerned about the fact that parallel to the discussion on the same day, the RA National Assembly adopted the draft law in the first reading , without taking into account and discussing the concerns of the professional community, as well as the legal and expert opinions. With this, the National Assembly once again contributed to the development of the vicious practice of conducting legal processes behind the scenes. We call upon the National Assembly to organize a public discussion with the professional community and specialized CSOs before adopting the drafts, and only after hearing the opinions and arguments of the interested parties, to discuss the appropriateness of adopting the legal act.