YEREVAN. – There is a legacy of human rights violation, and corruption that took place in Armenia for ten years, the representative of International Center for Transitional Justice Ruben Carranza said on Friday in the Armenian parliament. 

“In many countries in which we work whenever the question of judicial reforms comes up, has always been in relation to certain types of abuses, human rights violations and corruption cases,” he said.

Corruption is part of transitional justice process with specialized chambers created within the judiciary to assess the prosecution of corruption, he said and quoted Tunisian reforms.

“And before they established these chambers, there were some efforts to determine how many corruption cases were successfully prosecuted against the incumbent political leaders in Tunisia. And the second aspect was what is the capacity of the judges and prosecutors in Tunisia to prosecute corruption cases more generally, and it helps to decide what is needed: the vetting or specialized chamber to adjust corruption,” he added.

Touching upon the need of changes in Armenian constitution for transitional justice, many countries did not need to amend the constitution to ensure the constitutional standards for transitional justice, he said.

According to him, the vetting is not something that can be done in several months as there is a legacy of human rights violation, and corruption that took place in Armenia in ten years.  

“And these are the types of violation that could be addressed in transitional justice,” Carranza noted.