YREVAN. – Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council, Ruben Vardazaryan, does not agree with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's view that the judiciary of Armenia has become part of the pseudo-elite of the country.

"If we take the legal community and present it in the form of a pyramid, then the courts and judges are at the top of the pyramid, and therefore, they are already elite in themselves in the legal community and there is no need to be included in another elite," Vardazaryan told a press conference Tuesday.

As for Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan’s statement that the independence of Armenia’s judiciary is truly endangered, the chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council responded as follows: "The Minister of Justice has all the levers that if the independence of the judiciary is endangered, if it is so endangered that a criminal prosecution can be envisaged, then there is the Prosecutor's Office, the Special Investigation Service. I find it unacceptable the expressions in the form of Facebook posts that demean the standing of the judiciary. There is no lawsuit against any judge on this issue."