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PROGRESSIVE SOCIETY THINKS OF JURIDICAL SYSTEM INDEPENDENCE

Politics

The principal pre-condition of the efficient activity of the Justice Council is the independence of this body.

Almost in all the states, where the JC exists, the judges form the majority of its members. In some states, for instance in France, Romania, the majority of the JC members are magistrates, i.e. judges and prosecutors. In some state the right to form the JC is assigned to the National Assembly. In Bulgaria representatives of the Supreme Court of Cassations, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Prosecutor General serve on the Council. The other members – lawyers with highest professional skills and morals - are elected due a proportional principle by the juridical authority and the NA. “In 1998 the CE adopted the European Charter on the Status of Judges, where the most important principle of the JC independence of the executive and legislative powers is fixed. The Council should first of all be independent of the executive bodies”, specialist of the Constitutional Law Vardan Poghsosyan stated mentioning of the intermediate resolution on the constitutional amendments by the Venice Committee.

In the opinion of Vardan Poghosyan, our Constitution has some faults with respect to the JC independence. “According to the RA Constitution the guarantor of the justice is the President, who possesses supreme might while his surrogates are the Justice Minister and Prosecutor General”, he says. According to chapter 3 of the Article 94 of the acting Constitution, besides the President, the Justice Minister and Prosecutor General 14 other members – 2 lawyer-scientists, 9 judges, 3 prosecutors - serve on the Council. They are being appointed by the President for a 5-year term. Thus, according to the acting Constitution the President possesses a sole right to form the Justice Council. Taking into consideration the fact that the President also appoints the Justice Minister and Prosecutor General it not difficult to guess that the Council is a body dependent on the state leader.

The Venice Committee welcomed the clause of the coalition’s draft, which says that 9 out of 12 of the Council members are elected by the judges. However according to the Committee, the council members should be elected by the NA but not be appointed by the President. «If the order of the JC formation proposed by the coalition’s draft is adopted the status quo will be preserved, what is disastreous for the independence of the juridicla authority», Vardan Poghosyan resumed.

Victoria Abrahamyan