Andreasian implied that they should include judges who have signed in recent weeks statements accusing the Armenian authorities of seeking to curb judicial independence in the country.
“If the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) is up to the task, then I promise you that within a year the vetting [of judges] in Armenia will be over and we will have the kind of judicial system that you want,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The SJC is a nominally independent body empowered to fire judges or allow their arrest and prosecution. Such decisions have until now had to be backed by at least seven of the SJC’s ten members.
Under a bill passed by Armenia’s government-controlled parliament last week, five members will be enough to give the green light to punishing judges. Critics say Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration will use the bill to step up pressure on independent-minded judges reluctant to execute government orders or to get rid of them altogether.
Armenia -- A court building in Yerevan, June 9, 2020.
Andreasian stood by his earlier claims that at least 40 of the country’s judges are “corrupt” and must go. But he did not name them or offer any proof of the allegations.
The minister said instead: “There is some clan-based sentiment [within the judiciary.] For example, 93 judges signed some statement. I’m not saying that they all are corrupt. But I can see that 10, 20, 30 names are repeated when there is another action [by judges.]”
The 93 signatories mentioned by Andreasian reportedly demanded last week that the chairwoman of Armenia’s Court of Cassation, Lilit Tadevosian, call an emergency conference of judges. Their appeal followed the arrest of one of their colleagues.
The arrested judge, Boris Bakhshiyan, has said that he is prosecuted in retaliation for granting bail to a jailed opposition figure late last month. The leadership of Armenia’s Union of Judges has also decried his detention.
Prosecutors insist that the accusations leveled against Bakhshiyan are only connected with another decision which he made during an ongoing trial presided over by him.
Armenia -- Supporters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian block the entrance to a district court building in Yerevan, May 20, 2019.
In recent months, Armenian opposition groups, lawyers and some judges have repeatedly accused Pashinian’s government of seeking to increase government influence on courts under the guise of judicial reforms. The authorities deny this, insisting that the reforms are aimed at increasing judicial independence.
Pashinian demanded a mandatory “vetting” of all judges in 2019, saying that many of them are linked to the country’s former rulers. But his government subsequently agreed to refrain from such a purge at the urging of legal experts from the Council of Europe.
A new law enacted in 2020 introduced instead a “verification of the integrity” of judges which is carried out by a state anti-corruption body.
Andreasian sought to revive the idea of judicial “vetting” after being appointed as justice minister in August. He stated later in 2021 that the vetting process has already begun with the help of Gagik Jahangirian, a former prosecutor controversially installed as acting head of the SJC last April.
Andreasian complained on Tuesday that the process has been slow so far for a number of reasons, including objections from “European structures.”