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The Venice Commission published on Monday a joint opinion on the proposed amendments to the Judicial Code of Armenia and the Judicial Reform Package requested by Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan.

The commission says the overall assessment of the legislative amendments contained in the package is clearly positive, adding the proposed mechanisms increase the accountability of judges and are more efficient to prevent corruption, without, at the same time, disproportionately encroaching on the judges’ independence.

“Internally, the proposed reform underwent a process of public consultations; many amendments to the proposed texts were made following the input from the civil society organizations, the judicial community and other stakeholders. Many of the NGOs the delegation met in Yerevan noted with satisfaction the transparency and inclusiveness of the process of preparation of the package,” the report read.

“The Venice Commission understands that the proposed scheme of direct nominations to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (CPC). In sum, in the current political landscape the new system of nominations seems to be acceptable,” it said.

Reflecting on the required age to become a judge, the advisory body said it cannot criticize this proposal in abstracto, since it does not have sufficient knowledge of the Armenian education system, the “demographics” of the Armenian judiciary etc.

As to the Council of Europe standards regarding conditions for appointing judges, the commission said they do not mention certain age as a limit, therefore the lower age of the candidate is within the discretion of the authorities.

According to the opinion, one of the amendments standing apart in the package is an amendment to the Law on the Constitutional Court (the CC) which introduces the possibility for a certain category of CC judges (members – i.e. those justices who obtained their mandates under the Constitution before its revision in 2015 for life, until retirement) to resign before the end of the mandate with several advantages, if they so wish.

“The Armenian authorities plan an exceptional early retirement scheme. They invoke the implementation of the Constitution as revised in 2015 in a post-revolutionary context and consider that the shift from the life-time tenure of constitutional justices (provided by the Constitution before the 2015 revision) to fixed-term mandate (provided by the current version of the Constitution) should be applied immediately.

“At the outset, the Venice Commission stresses that all justices of the CC should enjoy the same status, irrespective of whether they were appointed before or after the 2015 revision of the Constitution. As to the early retirement scheme of judges appointed before the 2015 revision, the Venice Commission has previously criticized early retirement schemes when they were mandatory46 or when they affected a large number of judges.47 However, this criticism cannot be mounted where the resignation depends on a voluntary decision of the CC justices concerned. As a matter of principle, where the early retirement scheme remains truly voluntary, i.e. excludes any undue (political or personal) pressure on the judges concerned, or when it is not designed to influence the outcome of pending cases, there are no standards that would lead the Venice Commission to oppose such a scheme. However, the potential simultaneous retirement of several and even as many as seven out of nine justices might hamper the effective functioning of the Court. The Venice Commission therefore recommends that the Armenian authorities revise the proposed scheme so that this concern is alleviated,” the commission noted.

Summing up, the Venice Commission said the Judicial Reform Package, developed by the Ministry of Justice, generally “deserves praise”, adding in the process of preparation of the package the Armenian government acted in a “responsible and thoughtful manner and demonstrated openness to dialogue with all interlocutors, within and outside the country.”