On 14 January, the Armenian government approved a set of amendments to the Judicial Code and a number of related laws.

The country’s Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan said the amendments envisage the establishment of two new institutions. The first were judges dealing with judicial control over pre-trial procedures and the second were specialised judges considering corruption crimes. He said the statistics show that judges considering criminal cases also consider corruption cases, which relate to judicial control of pre-trial proceedings, issuing arrest and search warrants. “We believe that it is necessary to separate these specialisations in order to improve the effectiveness of the investigation. Based on the anti-corruption strategy, there is also a need for a separate institution to increase the efficiency of consideration of corruption cases,” Badasyan said.

In addition, Badsyan highlighted that the number of judges both in the courts of first instance and the Criminal Appeal Court will be increased to 21 and 3 respectively. He said that the judges for these new institutions would be chosen from the current judges and candidates after checking the latter's reliability and that the training and retraining procedures will be carried out in a more accelerated manner. 

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the proposed amendments were a part of his administration’s efforts to make the judiciary more independent and effective. He said that the new judges would undergo thorough “integrity checks” during the selection and appointment process, adding that a patrol police would also be established. 

Some critics of the Armenian government have already expressed concern over its plans to install magistrates tasked with allowing or blocking pre-trial arrests. They claim that the government wants to make sure that courts stop hampering politically motivated investigations ordered by it.

A day earlier, Pashinyan’s ruling My Step bloc moved on to install Gagik Jahangiryan for a vacant seat in the Supreme Judicial Council. Jahangiryan served as Armenia’s chief military prosecutor from 1997-2006 and was accused by civil activists of covering up crimes and abetting other abuses in the Armenian armed forces throughout his tenure.  

Pashinyan’s team made the decision despite not only Jahangirian’s controversial reputation but also his past feud with the prime minister. The two men publicly traded insults and recriminations when they were members of the country’s former parliament. In particular, Pashinyan accused Jahangiryan in 2015 of having secret ties to the country’s former President Serzh Sargsyan. Some government critics even suggested that Jahangiryan’s appointment derived from Pashinyan’s expectation to help increase government influence on the courts, amidst the refusals from the country’s courts to arrest dozens of opposition leaders and members as well as other anti-government activists during the political crisis in the country. 

The Armenian Prime Minister stated last month that Armenia’s judicial system has become part of a “pseudo-elite” which is trying to topple him after the Nagorno-Karabakh war. While commenting on this statement, Jahangiryan said that he does not regard Pashinyan’s remarks as pressure on the judiciary and strongly disagrees with some court rulings. He specifically denounced judges refusing to allow the pre-trial arrest of individuals facing coup charges.