Justice Minister Grigor Minasian and Karen Andreasian, the chairman of Armenia’s Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), were constrained to resign on October 1 and November 18 respectively despite showing strong loyalty to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian throughout their tenure. The two men are close friends and business partners, having reportedly co-founded a law firm years before Pashinian swept to power in 2018.
In their last capacity, they engineered the dismissals of dozens of judges who fell foul of the Armenian authorities. Critics condemned the sackings as a further blow to judicial independence. Minasian and Andreasian claimed, however, they on the contrary strengthened the judiciary as part of “reforms” praised by Western officials.
Pashinian publicly lamented a continuing lack of “justice” in the country on November 15 two days before telling Andreasian, the heads of two law-enforcement agencies and three senior government officials to resign. They all tendered resignation the following day.
Citing an unnamed “very reliable” resource, the Yerevan newspaper 168 Zham claimed on Tuesday that Andreasian agreed to quit after Pashinian pledged to block prosecutors’ efforts to confiscate his and Minasian’s assets deemed to have been acquired illegally.
Armenian courts can allow such confiscations in accordance with a controversial law enacted in 2021. The paper highly critical of Pashinian said a relevant division of the Office of the Prosecutor-General petitioned one of the courts for that purpose recently after scrutinizing the properties of the two effectively sacked officials and their families. The lawsuits were then “miraculously” withdrawn, it said.
The office denied the 168 Zham report. But it did not say whether the prosecutors had indeed opened an asset forfeiture case against Andreasian or Minasian.
Andreasian could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. The former head of the state body tasked with protecting Armenian judges against outside influence defended his track record when he announced his resignation on November 18. He claimed to have “brought the judicial system out of a shameful crisis.”
Arshak Vartanian, a former member of the SJC, claimed the opposite. He insisted that most of the judges ousted by the SJC were widely respected for their independence and professionalism. By contrast, Vartanian said, Andreasian proved that he himself is not independent by swiftly agreeing to step down.
Pashinian claimed late last week that he only “asked,” rather than pressured, Andreasian to quit. Some legal experts believe, however, that even such requests constitute illegal interference in the work of the judiciary.