June 2013
The ABA Rule of Law Initiative released the fourth volume of its compilation of criminal decisions from Armenia’s highest criminal court at a late-May event. More than 60 stakeholders, including representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office, and local and international human rights organizations, attended the event. ABA ROLI has since distributed 1,200 copies of the publication throughout Armenia. Arman Mkrtumyan, the chairman of the Court of Cassation, said that the publication promotes greater uniformity in the application of the law.
The use of case precedent is a fairly new concept in Armenia. Moreover, although judicial decisions are posted online to advance the use of case precedent, they are not searchable by legal issue. One would have to know a case’s name or identification number to access it. To help alleviate this challenge, since 2009, ABA ROLI has supported the annual compilation and publication of criminal decisions. The compilations have a very well-developed indexing system, which makes finding legal area-specific decisions easy. Judges, advocates, prosecutors and other beneficiaries say that they find the publications very useful for their day-to-day work.
ABA ROLI’s program in Armenia, which ended in May, was supported by the United States Agency for International Development.
To learn more about our work in Armenia, contact the ABA Rule of Law Initiative at [email protected].