On February 25, Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the Armenian National Assembly initiated parliamentary hearings on making amendments and supplements to the Judicial Code of Armenia and related packages of draft legislation.

Members of parliament, representatives of the executive branch of power, the judiciary as well as civil society organizations, experts, lawyers and other interested parties, including legal expert of Transparency International Anticorruption Center, Hayk Martirosyan were among those attending the hearings, during which Martirosyan raised two issues: one on the provision regarding the age of candidates for judges. The TI Armenia expert believes lowering the age limit to become a judge from 28 to 25 could have a negative impact on the quality of the court proceeding having to do with the lack of experience of judges.

Martirosyan has also noted that the proposed draft legislation the assessment for the grounds of the judicial act noted in the standards for the evaluation of judges violates the principles of independence of judges as well as the logic for the structure of the judiciary as the evaluation committee will also be comprising of judges, which will be problematic in terms of the impartiality of the procedure.

Original source: RA National Assembly