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Hovsep Sargsyan, a member of the Bar Association; Davit Harutjunyan, a judge at the Court of First Instance of the City of Yerevan; Vazgen Rshtuni, a judge at the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia; Prof. Anna R. Margaryan, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at Yerevan State University, Nelly Tumasyan, IRZ Project Coordinator in Armenia (from right to left) Armenia
On 24 and 25 September 2021, a Criminal Moot Court was held in Aghveran, Armenia, for the sixth time since 2016. This highly successful annual event is organised by IRZ together with the Faculty of Law at Yerevan State University. Students at Armenian universities as well as representatives of other organisations can apply to participate in this competition. The aim of the Moot Court is for participants to actively experience a court hearing through role play and thereby gain practical experience in the various legal professions.
This year's event was opened by Anna R. Margaryan, Professor of Criminal Law and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at Yerevan State University, and IRZ Head of Section Frank Hupfeld. Professor Margaryan then explained how the Moot Court works.
A total of ten groups of three people applied to participate in this year's court competition. The groups from the following five institutions passed the written selection tests and participated in the Moot Court:
Yerevan State University
Artzakh State University (Nagorno-Karabakh)
Police Academy of the Republic of Armenia
French University in Armenia
Armenian-Russian University in Armenia
Participants in the Moot Court
During the Moot Court, each group was supervised by a trainer. For the five role plays in the first phase of the Moot Court, each group took on both the prosecutor and the defender role once. The two winning groups from the first phase competed against each other in the subsequent final competition. The participants' performances were judged by an Armenian-German jury:
Vazgen Rshtuni, a judge at the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Armenia
Davit Harutjunyan, a judge at the Court of First Instance of the City of Yerevan
Hovsep Sargsyan, a member of the Bar Association
Dr. Arnd Weishaupt, a judge at the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf and IRZ expert
After the results of this year's court competition had been announced, there was a festive award ceremony. For once, two groups won this year's Moot Court – from the French University in Armenia and from the Yerevan State University.
Two groups that competed against each other during the Moot Court
The award ceremony was attended by the above-mentioned jury members and representatives of Yerevan State University, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Gagik Ghazinyan, and his deputy, Prof. Anna Margaryan. The ceremony was also attended by a group of people who travelled especially for the occasion:
Arman Tatoyan, Ombudsman of Armenia
Dr Artur Israelyan, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and Public Relations at Yerevan State University
Elen Hakobyan, a representative from the Judicial Academy
Armen Asatryan, a representative from the Bar Association
Vahe Engibaryan, a representative from the Judges' Association
Their presence reflects the popularity of this series of events in Armenia.
Since the representatives of the participating institutions explicitly emphasised the importance of the moot courts in Armenia, IRZ plans to continue the series of events next year.
Team leader Peter Gjortler (back) with Amalia Hovsepyan, Advisor for International Legal Cooperation at the Armenian Ministry of Justice, Anahit Abrahamyan, Deputy Head of the Judicial Academy, and Anna Mkrtichyan also from the Judicial Academy (from left to right) Armenia
On 12 July 2021, the second Steering Committee Meeting for the EU grant “Consolidation of the Justice System in Armenia” took place in Yerevan. IRZ has been leading this project, which aims to improve the quality of the justice system in Armenia, since June 2020, alongside the French organisation “Expertise France” and the Latvian judicial administration.
The meeting, which was held in a hybrid format, was attended by the German and Armenian project managers and those responsible for the EU delegation in Armenia, as well as representatives of key players in the Armenian justice system, including Deputy Justice Minister Kristinne Grigoryan. The aim of these regular steering meetings is to present the developments and progress of the project and to discuss them with the partners.
Once the meeting had been opened by Gonzalo Serrano de la Rosa, Head of Cooperation of the EU delegation, who emphasised the importance of the project as a central building block for EU cooperation with Armenia, team leader Peter Gjortler gave an overview of the past few months of the project, focussing in particular on the formal restructuring of the project schedule, which had taken place in consultation with the partner authorities.
Afterwards, the long-term experts Arman Zrvandyan, Gohar Hakobyan and Otilia Pacurari presented the activities carried out and the results already achieved. These include, for example, recommendations on simplifying administrative procedures, expert opinions on modernising the code of civil procedure and an analysis of standards of integrity among public prosecutors. In the area of further training, a comprehensive analysis of the existing further training system of the Judicial Academy was provided, allowing, among other things, the training methodology to be optimised and targeted curricula to be developed on this basis.
During the subsequent discussions, those involved in the project praised the successful cooperation, which was already bearing fruit. The Armenian partners were satisfied with the results achieved so far, and the success of the meeting therefore represented an important milestone for further implementation. Thanks to the establishment of the project locally, the opening of the project office in spring 2021 and, in particular, the permanent presence of foreign long-term experts in the country, the project can now be carried out under almost normal conditions despite the pandemic. The committed project team has a busy second project year ahead of them.
Prof. Gagik Ghazinyan, Dean of the Law Faculty at Yerevan State University, IRZ project coordinator Nelly Tumasyan and Anahit Manasyan, a lecturer in the Law Faculty at Yerevan State University and Vice Dean of the Academy of Justice of Armenia (from left to right at the table of speakers) Armenia
From 25 to 29 January 2021, the last of four one-week autumn courses took place as part of the “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project, which was financed by the German Foreign Office.
45 students from four Armenian partner universities in the project took part in the event on media law, which had to be postponed at short notice until January 2021. These universities were:
the Faculty of Law at the Yerevan State University,
the French University in Armenia,
the Armenian-Russian University and
the American University.
Armenia
Just like the previous courses, this event also took place in a hybrid format, with participants in Armenia attending in person in a conference room and the two German experts and IRZ representatives joining them online.
The Permanent Representative of the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Armenia, Klaus Wendelberger, opened this last event in the series of autumn courses. He underlined the role of the media as a “fourth power” and emphasised the complex and yet important legal framework. Other welcome speeches were given by Frank Hupfeld, IRZ Head of Section, and Prof. Gagik Ghazinyan, Dean of the Law Gaculty at Yerevan State University.
Anahit Manasyan, a lecturer in the department of constitutional law at the law faculty at Yerevan State University and Vice Dean of the Academy of Justice of Armenia went on to give a lecture on the “fundamental issues with media law in the Republic of Armenia”.
Just as for the previous three autumn courses, the first three days of the one-week event were taken up with lectures and discussions. This theoretical part of the course was followed on the last two days by practical work on cases in groups. The students took an active part in the discussions and worked together enthusiastically.
The following speakers from Germany took part in the event:
Dr. Jörg Ukrow, LL.M.Eur., Managing Director of the EMR (Institute of European Media Law) and Deputy Director of the media authority for the federal state of Saarland
Tobias Sommer, LL.M, a lawyer at the “Sommer” law firm, specialising in industrial property rights, copyright law & media law
The themes for the autumn course were:
An introduction to media law
references to European law and constitutional law
the dual broadcasting system in Germany
media operators: their registration, financing and supervision
protecting young people from the media
fake news and disinformation as a legal issue
protecting diversity in the media
Private press and media laws, media laws in the legal system for intellectual property
General privacy rights and legal protection with regards to the media (prohibition of censorship; claims arising from violating property rights and privacy rights; dispute proceedings)
Laws governing print and visual reporting; introduction to copyright (significance of copyright; copyrighted works, copyright contract law; ancillary copyrights (protection period)
Three other autumn courses had already taken place as part of this project. These covered the following topics:
The project was overall a great success and was met with a great deal of interest from the students. This is particularly remarkable in view of the current political developments in Armenia.
About the project
The “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project was financed by the German Foreign Office to support the “Development of the partnership with civil society in Eastern Partnership countries and Russia”. The project was aimed at law students, who will play a key role as disseminators in shaping the future justice system in Armenia. The four one-week autumn courses taught young people about four key areas of the law: human rights, constitutional law, European law and media law. Discussions and workshops focussed on the basics of these areas of the law and their application within the Armenian legal context.
