Democratic Institutions and Statehood
The 2005 Constitutional Amendments
The RA Constitution adopted on July 5, 1995, established the economic, social and political foundations for the unhindered development of the Republic of Armenia. Nevertheless, the development of the society and the time itself required new approaches. The 2005 constitutional amendments were aimed at balancing the branches of power. Amendments were designed to reconsider the dominant position of the RA President in relation to the branches of power, thus having increased the role of the Parliament in the system of government bodies, while ensuring the independence of the Government, establishing an effective system of checks and balances, contributing to the real guarantee of human and civil rights and establishing effective protection means for them.
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The constitutional amendments included almost all spheres of public life, resulting in new opportunities for Armenia.
The powers of the President of the Republic were significantly limited, and some of those were transferred to the National Assembly. The changes made in the Constitution were also essential in terms of increasing the role of the Parliament. Constitutional status was granted to the Human Rights Defender and the National Commission on Television and Radio.
The constitutional amendments established a number of new human and citizen’s rights, expanding the existing range of human rights and freedoms. The new obligations of the State to respect and ensure human rights and freedoms, were now stipulated by the Constitution. Particularly, Article 3 of the Constitution stated: “The human being, his or her dignity, fundamental rights and freedoms are the highest values. The State shall ensure the protection of fundamental human and citizen’s rights and freedoms, in conformity with the principles and norms of international law. The State shall be bound by fundamental human and citizen’s rights and freedoms as directly applicable law”. The constitutional amendments also influenced the sphere of local self-government. Eventually, the concept of local self-government was prescribed in the Constitution and several provisions were included in the Constitution that would significantly contribute to the stable progress of local self-governance and increase its independence.
Judicial Reforms
As a part of the first phase of judicial reforms which commenced after the adoption of the Constitution of July 5, 1995, numerous relevant legal acts, codes and laws were adopted. On January 12, 1999, after their entry into force, the three-tier court system was established, and the institute of appeal, which did not exist in Soviet times, started to operate. In 2001, the RA Economic Court was established. The RA Criminal Code was adopted in 2003. Another important step was the humanitarization and demilitarization process in the penitentiary system, resulting in its transfer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice. The 2005 constitutional amendments spurred the second phase of judicial reforms.
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Court buildings were improved and re-equipped with modern technical means. Within the second phase of reforms, the RA Judicial Code, as well as the Laws "On the Prosecutor's Office", "On Commercial Arbitration", "On Bankruptcy", "On the Judicial Service" were adopted, meanwhile other laws were respectively amended and supplemented.
The Judicial Code laid down the foundation for a new judicial system. Soon after its adoption, the Judicial School was established, which played an important role in strengthening the administration of justice in the Republic. Within the implementation framework of judicial reforms, the distribution of staff units of the relevant state bodies was carried out by a working group established upon the order of the President and acting under his direct control.
It is noteworthy, that in 2001, after having become a full member of the Council of Europe and having joined the European Convention on Human Rights, the citizens of Armenia gained the opportunity to apply to the European Court of Human Rights, which was a major and visible progress in the field of human rights protection and democracy.
Fight against Corruption
In 2003-2007, fight against corruption in Armenia was implemented through systemic, legislative, and infrastructural reforms covering all spheres of state administration. On October 21, 2003, the RA Government adopted the Decision No. 1522-N "On Anti-Corruption Strategy of the Republic of Armenia and measures for its implementation”. In order to eliminate the causes of corruption occurrence and with the aim of improving state policy towards its prevention, upon the President’s decision, the Anti-Corruption Council was established, which, in 2004, formed a Commission to monitor the Anti-Corruption Strategy implementation.
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Ten working groups with more than 120 representatives from civil society organizations were established to conduct the in-house monitoring of the RA Anti-Corruption Strategy implementation and anti-corruption expertise of draft legal acts. Among the main legislative reforms were the adoption of the RA Judicial Code, RA Labor Code and the Laws "On making amendments and supplements to the Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia", "On the Prosecutor's Office", "On income and asset declaration of natural persons", "On combating the legalization of proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism", "On the Control Chamber", "On freedom of information”. Amendments and supplements were made to the Criminal and Civil Codes of the Republic of Armenia, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Civil Procedure Code, legal acts pertaining to the tax and customs spheres, aimed at eliminating arbitrary and subjective approaches in the relations with economic entities and citizens. In the field of health and education, the criteria for the implementation of educational and health services were clarified, which made it possible to establish distinct control mechanisms and ensure their application. Within the framework of international cooperation in fighting corruption, on January 20, 2004, the Republic of Armenia joined the group of countries fighting corruption (GRECO). The recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Anti-Corruption network for transition economies, concerning the Republic of Armenia were also adopted in 2004. In the same year, the RA National Assembly also ratified the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (with attached declarations), the Additional Protocol to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (with an attached declaration) and the Civil Law Convention on Corruption. The UN Convention against Corruption was ratified by the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia in 2006.
Civil service system
In December 2001, the RA National Assembly adopted the Law "On Civil Service", thus commencing the process of introducing civil service system in Armenia. The purpose of this process was to promote the implementation of an effective and unified human resource policy, to replenish the government staff with skillful specialists free from political influence and endowed with high moral qualities. Equally important was the introduction of new agencies for training and attestation of civil servants, which, on the one hand, ensured the improvement of professional skills and knowledge of civil servants, their long-term training, and on the other hand, once every three years, established the civil servants’ compliance with their positions. In order to ensure the impartiality of the competition committee, criteria and mechanisms for evaluating test tasks and conducting the interviews, which is the second stage of competitions and attestations, were clearly regulated.
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The fundamental principles for legal protection and the interchangeability of civil servants were firmly established. Effective mechanisms for personnel management, methodical management and unified control over the civil servant activities were introduced.
Active efforts were launched to establish and deepen the cooperation in this area with international organizations and relevant structures of different countries. One of the significant innovations was that since October 2002, all vacant civil service positions have been filled exclusively through competitions. Thus, equal access was ensured for all citizens interested in this area of public administration. According to the World Bank, the Armenian civil service system could serve as a model for the CIS countries.
The Ombudsman Institute
The necessity to introduce the Ombudsman Institute was primarily owing to Armenia's membership in the Council of Europe. According to PACE Opinion No. 221 (July 28, 2000), the Republic of Armenia was required to adopt a law on the human rights defender within six months after joining the Council of Europe on January 25, 2001. On October 21, 2003, the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia passed the law, which was signed by the President of the Republic of Armenia on November 15, 2003, and entered into force on January 1, 2004. The President consulted with the factions (groups) of the National Assembly and on February 19, 2004, upon the Presidential Decree No. NH-23-A, Larisa Alaverdyan, the Chairperson of the public organization "Against Legal Arbitrariness” was appointed as the Human Rights Defender. In 2005, draft amendments to the Constitution were put into circulation, and these amendments were adopted through referendum on November 27.
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This also entailed amendments to the law for bringing it into accordance with the Constitution. Paragraph 2 of Article 83.1 of the amended law stated the following: "A person who enjoys high authority within the public and meets the requirements of a parliamentarian may be elected as the human rights defender». In February 2006, the first Parliamentary Ombudsman, Armen Harutyunyan, was elected for a 6-year term. At the same time, two candidates were nominated, i.e., an alternative candidacy was also nominated by the National Assembly opposition. In fact, for the first time in the history of Armenia, a firm foundation was laid down for the establishment of the Parliamentary Ombudsman Institute.
