Armenia is among few countries which introduced gender balance principles in the process of recruitment of judges, as per the report published by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe on Thursday.

“Only Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Germany, Montenegro, Norway and UK-England and Wales indicate that they apply specific rules in this regard. For example, in Armenia, parity between men and women is one of the considerations when drawing up the list of judge candidates, which must contain not less than 25 % of representatives of one gender,” the report reads. 

In fact, in Armenia, 77 percent of all judges are males, and 23 percent are females, the share of male judges being much higher than the European average of 49 percent. There are no female presidents of the courts in Armenia.

According to the document, Armenia has a total of 226 professional judges, 8 per 100,000 inhabitants, an increase of 11 percent since 2010. The number of public prosecutors per 100,000 is 10.1, almost unchanged since 2010.

Number of days it takes for the court of 1st instance to take a decision on a criminal case is 135 days in 2014, almost two-times increase as compared to 2010 (78 days).

The report also noted that Armenia is among the states spending less than 15 € per capita on the courts.

The revenues generated by court fees are also among the very lowest (0.84 euro per capita), the share of court fees in the court budgets in Armenia being 16 percent, the report says 

According to the CEPEJ experts, between 2012 and 2014, Armenia increased the total budget of the courts by 33 per cent, 37 percent more budget being now allocated to the salaries.

Apart from this,  Armenia has been mentioned among nine countries which devote 80 percent or more of the court budget to the gross salaries of staff, together with Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Portugal, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Ukraine.