Council of Europe/European Union Partnership for Good Governance

Supporting the criminal justice reform and harmonising the application of European standards in Armenia

Start date: 1 January 2019

Duration: 36 months

Donor: The project is funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in the framework of their Partnership for Good Governance 2019-2022

Project counterparts: Ministry of Justice, Justice Academy, Judiciary, Representative of the Republic of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights, Parliament, Office of the General Prosecutor, Special Investigation Service, Investigative Committee, Human Rights Defender’s Office, as well as civil society.

The Project aimed at supporting Armenia in the criminal justice reform through legislative, methodological and capacity-building assistance. It provided expert advice in the process of formulating and applying criminal and criminal procedure policy by key justice sector stakeholders. This included capacity building for the Justice Academy to train judges and judicial servants, as well as direct capacity building for criminal justice sector institutions. Special attention was paid to the issues highlighted by the CoE monitoring mechanisms. These include, but are not limited to, the prevention of ill-treatment and impunity, application of pre-trial detention, procedural guarantees in the criminal procedure, etc. The Project also capitalised on the heightened interest of the public towards some of these issues to both raise the awareness of European standards, but also to achieve, together with Armenian stakeholders, legislative and practical solutions most in line with the European standards.

Results of the Project:

1. National criminal justice policy and practice better aligned with European standards;

2. Harmonisation of national jurisprudence with the ECtHR case-law facilitated;

3. Capacity of the Justice Academy to train judges, candidate judges and judicial servant on criminal justice and human rights strengthened.