Andrea Wiktorin, EU Ambassador to Armenia (on the left), Yeranuhi Tumanyants, Deputy Minister of Justice Armenia
IRZ brought the EU Grant “Consolidation of the Justice System in Armenia” to a formal conclusion on 21 July 2022 with the high-level expert conference “Judicial Reform and Access to Justice” in Yerevan. The conference addressed the role of judicial reforms in the development of democratic structures and the challenges that emerge in these processes.
Andrea Wiktorin, EU Ambassador to Armenia, used her welcome address to stress the central importance of a reliable judiciary for the country’s economic development. Deputy Minister of Justice Yeranuhi Tumanyants pointed out that the Armenian government has already undertaken efforts in the field of judicial reform, for instance its decision to continue the judicial reform strategy, which was reached on the same day. A study on the public perception of the quality of the judiciary in Armenia was designed and commissioned as part of the project and is expected to yield important impulses. The findings were presented during the conference.
The project included three components targeting the Ministry of Justice of Armenia as well as the central judicial actors – so the Supreme Judicial Council, the Justice Academy, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Bar Association, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption as well as the judiciary itself – which supported the fundamental judicial reform under the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the EU.
In addition to extensive training components and the development of a court assessment programme, the last few months of the project focused on a number of legal reforms with contributions from the project.
The results of the project were presented to a larger audience at the conference, which was also attended by the cooperation partners Expertise France, the Latvian Court Administration, representatives of several embassies of EU states and other judicial projects and funding bodies, as well as law firms and companies. Ongoing implementation is now in the hands of the Armenian actors.
Working group from the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia for the new penitentiary institution in Armenia; 3rd from the left: Arpine Sargsyan, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Armenia
IRZ organised a study strip to Baden-Württemberg from 20 to 24 June 2022 as part of the technical assistance provided to the Armenian Ministry of Justice regarding the planned construction of a new correctional facility. The itinerary included visits to the penitentiary institutions in Karlsruhe, Offenburg and Stuttgart, as well as to the Bildungszentrum Justizvollzug Baden-Württemberg, a training centre for prison staff in Germany.
The technical assistance aims to accompany the construction of a new correctional facility in Armenia according to the latest standards of a humane penitentiary system as early as during the planning phase.
Intense discussions between the Armenian delegation and the German team of experts in the respective correctional institutions focused on prison concepts and their structural feasibility and were followed by on-site visits.
Led by the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, Arpine Sargsyan, the Armenian delegation consisted of the penitentiary expert team from the Armenian Ministry of Justice, the commissioned architect and the president of the NGO Social Justice.
The following consultants were involved in the discussions on the German side:
Thomas Müller, Prison Director at the Karlsruhe Penal Institution,
Hans-Peter Wurdak, Prison Director at the Offenburg Penal Institution,
Matthias Nagel, Prison Director at the Stuttgart Penal Institution,
Heiko Oberle, Deputy Prison Director at the Karlsruhe Penal Institution,
Dr Joachim Obergfell-Fuchs, Director of the Bildungszentrum Justizvollzug Baden-Württemberg,
IRZ has advised the Armenian Ministry of Justice on reforms of the Armenian penitentiary system for several years (on the draft of the new Penitentiary Code, which entered into force on 1 July 2022, on staff training at various penitentiary institutions and on other matters).
Key support in questions of penitentiary law relating to the new correctional facility building is entrusted to IRZ expert Thomas Müller, who has provided advice on the penitentiary system for several years together with Heinz Brüche.
left to right: IRZ Project Coordinator Armenia; Arman Tatoyan, Ombudsman of the Republic of Armenia, Laura Gasparyan, Coordinator for the Implementation of the National Preventive Mechanism and Director-General of the Department for the Prevention of Torture and Ill-Treatment at the Ombudsman's Office of the Republic of Armenia Armenia
“Rights and protection of mentally ill persons in prisons and the penal system" - this was the topic of an event organised by the IRZ for the first time with the Ombudsman’s Office of the Republic of Armenia, an independent institution tasked with protecting human rights and freedoms in Armenia or to ensure it is restored in the event of a violation of the law.
The expert discussion took place from 3-4 December 2021 in a hybrid format: the German experts and representatives of the IRZ connected online to the contingent in Germany with the participants in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia.
Representatives of the following institutions took part in the expert talks:
Employees of the Ombudsman’s Office
Representatives of the Ministry of Justice and the Penal Department at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia
Employees of the various correctional facilities
Representatives of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Affairs
Employees from psychiatric departments of various hospitals (also from the surrounding regions) and
Employees of specialised children's homes
The event was opened by Armenia's Ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, and the IRZ Head of Section, Frank Hupfeld. Laura Gasparyan, Coordinator for the Implementation of the National Preventive Mechanism and Director-General for the Prevention of Torture and Ill-Treatment at the Ombudsman Office of the Republic of Armenia, then reported on the situation in Armenia and on the status of the rights and protection of persons with mental illnesses in Armenia.
The two German speakers, Silvia Hawliczek, a specialist psychologist for forensic psychology, former social director and Tina Hübner, a psychologist at the Berlin Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, first presented the health system in the German penal system and the forensic psychiatric hospital.
The expert talks then took place on the following topics:
Mechanisms to protect the mentally ill
Ways to eliminate the stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness
Recording and registering the neglect and problems of mentally ill people and the institutions responsible
Methods for finding solutions to problems
Raising awareness of personnel regarding the rights and protection of the mentally ill
Intensive expert discussions took place and the representatives of the participating institutions emphasised the importance of the event and the continuation of the cooperation in the coming year.
