YEREVAN. – It is very important to record the challenges we have today. The first challenge is: Armenia is a democratic country, but that democracy exists in Armenia as an emotional expression, and that is the emotional continuation of the velvet revolution that took place in 2018. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted this in his speech during today’s conference at the National Assembly, and dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Armenia's institute of Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman).

"Now we need to make democracy stronger in the institutional sense," he said. "I mean so that its future does not in any way depend on the taste, mood, discretion of any leader, any person, party."

According to Pashinyan, establishing an independent judiciary is a major challenge for them. "I want to record the will of the government. (…) We are fundamentally opposed to having a judicial system that is under control,” the Prime Minister declared. "Today, the judicial system in Armenia must undergo substantive, profound changes from top to bottom so that it is truly independent."

"We have big problems today, in general, with the quality of the work of the legal system," he said. “In the new environment we need a new law enforcement system.

In the context of all these reforms, the human rights defender’s institute is central to us because we view the human rights defender as a catalyst for evaluating the reforms we are undertaking.

The Government of Armenia and the ruling majority will do their utmost to create all the conditions conducive to the human rights defender’s work.

The human rights situation in the Republic of Armenia (…) will get better.”