During the consultation on 31 March under the leadership of Anna Vardapetyan, Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia the course of execution of assignments of 6 February 2023 directed at revelation of criminal cases (proceedings) pending under examination for more than 8 months and representation of results were summarized.
Gevorg Baghdasaryan, Artur Poghosyan, Deputees of the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia, Lilit Gevorgyan, Prosecutor of Yerevan city and heads of subdivisions of the Prosecutor General’s Office participated in the consultation.
Prosecutor General of the Republic addressed one of the key issues of the field of justice—delay of the terms of examination of the case. In this context Anna Vardapetyan highlighted that in the report on the operation of the Prosecutor’s Office during 2022 submitted to the National Assembly a separate chapter on the “delayed justice” was envisaged and during its representation in the NA she shall address the structural issues of delaying the cases and the measures directed at their solution, which are developed as a result of the work and summarizations carried out in the Prosecutor General’s Office.
According to the assignment of the Prosecutor General of 06 February the course of criminal cases (proceedings) pending under examination in the pre-trial proceedings for more than 8 months and the reasons of delay of examination term shall be discussed with the deputies of the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia as well as during the operative consultations held in the relevant departments of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
During the study it was found out that 5202 criminal cases (proceedings) examined in the subdivisions of the Investigative Committee as of 1 March 2023 has been under the examination for more than 8 months.
Gevorg Baghdasaryan, Artur Poghosyan, Deputees of the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia represented the results of the work performed in the scope of the sector under their coordination and highlighted that about 1200 cases (proceedings) were examined by them as well as by the departments based on the assignments and assignments on completion of majority of cases (proceedings) were given.
The objective and subjective reasons of delay of examination of cases (proceedings) were also addressed during the consultation, highlighting the increase of the amount of criminal proceedings, failure of undertaking procedural activities for a long time, appointment of not essential expert examinations for the examination, the quality of questions submitted to the expert as well as failure of submitting the requested materials by the expert and incomplete application of prosecutorial controlling and supervisory mechanisms.
Based on the results of discussions related to the raised issues and submitted proposals the Prosecutor General of the Republic gave the following assignments and defined the terms of execution thereof.
Discussions on criminal cases examined for more than 8 months shall be conducted at intervals defined by the Prosecutor General of the RA.
