A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government approved the 2022-2026 Strategy for Judicial and Legal Reforms of the Republic of Armenia and the action plan stemming from that. The first substantive direction of the strategy is the reform of the judicial system, which envisages the launch the entire chain of anti-corruption courts in the coming months. The other direction is the digitization of judicial processes and e-justice, which applies not only to courts, but also to the entire system of criminal justice, preliminary investigation bodies. The strategy envisages checking the integrity of all acting judges, as well as prosecutors, investigators, and employees of the penitentiary institutions. Among the strategic directions are the provision of the possibility of appealing disciplinary decisions in the Supreme Judicial Council, reforms in the fields of advocacy, enforcement, bankruptcy, notary, development of alternative methods of dispute resolution, etc.

Noting the importance of the strategy, the Prime Minister said, “Recently, I was leafing through the report of the Eastern Partnership initiative of the European Union and noted that in a number of directions, the Republic of Armenia has a leading position in the countries of the Eastern Partnership, and the subheading/heading "independent judicial system" is also on that list. On the one hand, it is good that we generally always demand more from ourselves, but, on the other hand, according to the evaluation of our international partners, we have very significant progress. Being a leader among Eastern Partnership countries in this direction is an important record, moreover, Armenia is also a leader in a number of other directions, in particular, the credibility of elections, the fight against corruption, and freedom of speech.

I want to draw special attention to our plans for the arbitration center. By our strategy we have recorded that foreign investors, even local investors, when co-investing with each other, can enter into an agreement that any disputes they may have will be settled by arbitration, based on English law, foreign law.

We are confident that we have developed a quality strategy and if we move forward with consistent steps, we will not only maintain, but also strengthen our leadership in having an independent judicial system, particularly in the platform of the Eastern Partnership."

The Government made a decision on making redistribution and changes in the 2022 state budget of the Republic of Armenia and allocating money to the Police. The purpose of the decision is providing the legal basis for the acquisition of vehicles for the patrol service to be formed in January 2023 in Aragatsotn, Gegharkunik, Kotayk and Tavush Provinces and its financing. In particular, it is planned to purchase 175 vehicles by allocating AMD 3,107.5 million. The process will be carried out by the purchase procedure from one person.

The Government approved the program of organizing vocational training and ensuring employment of unemployed persons who took part in the military operations unleashed by Azerbaijan in 2016 and 2020. The program has 3 components: vocational training for the beneficiary for up to 5 months, a 3-month probationary period with the employer, and if, in the opinion of the employer, vocational training and probationary period are not needed, immediate employment and lump sum compensation.

Nikol Pashinyan noted that the state aims to support the serviceman in professional orientation and job finding after his discharge, if he needs it, and emphasized that after making decisions, proper monitoring should be carried out and to find out to what extent the person gets the opportunity to make use of those decisions.

The Government adopted a decision on redistributing and making changes in the 2022 state budget of the Republic of Armenia and allocating money to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure to repair or build completely new drinking water supply networks/water purification plants in 27 settlements of 3 Provinces of Armenia. The program is planned for 2022-2024, the total cost is AMD 6 billion 200 million. This year it is necessary to allocate 2 billion 468 million AMD.

The Prime Minister noted that the biggest problem of both irrigation and drinking water is the losses due to wear and tear of the system. The Head of the Government also referred to the activities of "Veolia Djur" company, saying, “We have a contract and partnership relations with "Veolia Djur" company, they have obligations, the Government has obligations, and in order to manage the system effectively, we must mutually fulfill our obligations as timely and accurately as possible. As a result, of course, the consumer, the citizen should benefit."