The existence of criminal subculture and organized crime in general, cause problems in many public sectors, and one of the steps to solve the sector-specific problems is envisaging criminal liability for the acts that we have described. This is what Minister of Justice of Armenia Rustam Badasyan told journalists today, touching upon the government’s regulation by which criminal liability is envisaged for creating or managing a group bearing criminal subculture.

“It’s obvious that the fight against criminal subculture neither starts nor ends with this. We have simply submitted a bill criminalizing acts that pose a higher risk for the public,” he stated.

Touching upon his statement that there are judges who meet with criminal authorities and then render verdicts and when asked if there are relevant mechanisms to subject such judges to liability and touching upon the statement by Chairman of the Criminal Court of Appeal Vazgen Rshtuni about repressions on courts, Badasyan expressed certainty that the public has the right to know who the people implementing justice are. “This is why the government has included in the Judicial Code certain mechanisms for verifying judge candidates and will continue to introduce mechanisms. We are also improving the institute of disciplinary liability,” he said.