Recording the current state of our judicial system, I find it extremely important that we soon have a serious discussion and make a decision on whether we should set up transitional justice agencies.

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, stated the aforementioned at Friday’s rally summing up the 100 days of his tenure as PM. 

“We may need transitional justice agencies not just because numerous corrupt ‘faces’ of our judiciary continue ‘not to grasp’ the people’s revolution, but because there are numerous problems in our legislation,” he explained.

As one such example, Pashinyan said $30 million were found in only one bank account of the brother of a top official.

“In the formal sense, this man wasn’t a state official, didn’t submit a declaration [of assets] for many years, and therefore there are difficulties in terms of investigating that amount and confiscating [it] in the manner prescribed by law,” he said. “This is the reason why we should think about forming new transitional justice agencies.

“Numerous international organizations and partner countries express willingness to assist [us] in disclosing, freezing, and returning to the Republic of Armenia the assets which senior Republic of Armenia officials have in foreign countries and offshore zones.”

Also, Pashinyan reaffirmed that the provisional government of Armenia has abandoned the practice of making telephone calls to court judges and imposing rulings upon them.

“But that doesn’t mean that we will allow anyone to evade accountability,” Nikol Pashinyan added, in particular.