The question of the judiciary is one of the most urgent and important ones for our government, the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, on Thursday noted, as he responded to the queries at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in Strasbourg, France

"I can assure you of one thing, without any sentiment: it is vital to us to have a 100% unconditionally independent judiciary whose decisions and judgments are trusted by Armenian society and the international community.

Recently, a delegation of the European Union came to Armenia, and we discussed our position on having an independent judiciary. The delegates posed a very direct question to me: “How far are you willing to go to make the judiciary independent?” I gave a very direct answer. I said that en route to an independent judiciary, we are ready to go to the very end. We understand that without a truly and unobjectionably independent judiciary we cannot guarantee or safeguard, irreversibly and ultimately, the continuous strengthening and consolidation of our democracy and institutions," PAshinyan noted.

At the same time, the PM noted that "unfortunately, I cannot give you a 100% assurance on that, but I do give you a 100% assurance that our government has eliminated the alleged practice of the judiciary being steered by government. We have completely given up on this practice. This may sound a bit strange, but I do not have 100% confidence that the other levers of influence over the judiciary are all gone. I am not fully confident that there is no corruption in our judiciary because about 10 days ago, a judge was arrested in Armenia as he was taking a bribe. It is clear that we are fully committed to the agenda of having an independentjudiciary."