Chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a consultation on the construction of the justice district took place.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan, Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council Karen Andreasyan, Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan, Minister of Internal Affairs Vahe Ghazaryan, Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on State-Legal Affairs Vladimir Vardanyan, Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan, Chairman of the Investigative Committee Argishti Kyaramyan, Head of the Cadastre Committee Suren Tovmasyan, Chairman of the Urban Development Committee Armen Ghularyan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister Bagrat Badalyan, Deputy Minister of Justice Ara Mkrtchyan, other officials.

Referring to the issue, Prime Minister Pashinyan said,

"Dear colleagues, we have been discussing for a long time the issue of creating, conditionally speaking, a district of justice. What is it related with? We are carrying out major reforms in the legal system, but usually it is not noticeable to many that during these substantial reforms, a very big problem of physical infrastructure also arises: building conditions and so on. We can also observe that there are certain rather heavy expenses for the maintenance of the judicial and investigative system, which are largely the reason of often outdated ways of organizing work and logistics. And now we want to think about what we can do to make it all more effective, so that, firstly, proper and solid working conditions are created for the judicial system without the logic of attached buildings, secondly, the rights of detained and convicted persons are protected, and as much as possible dignified conditions should also be created for persons in custody, parties to the proceedings, etc.

This is an idea for the implementation of which we have made a lot of efforts, different projects and options have been discussed, and I must say that we still do not have a final vision, including for technical reasons. I think that the state administration system should be removed from the small center of Yerevan and from the center in general, because the proper management of the state property that is located in the small center and center of Yerevan can bring tens of billions of income to the state and make management processes more efficient. Whereas today it is the exact opposite.

I can give one simple example. Of course, the building where we are at the moment is of great historical and cultural value, but we do not count how much money is spent, for example, for heating, cooling, maintenance of the 6-meter-high offices of this building, which could either not be spent, or spent more efficiently. I think that here too we need a change in thinking and mentality, and we should adopt that strategy of completely removing public administration from the small center of Yerevan and from the center in general and making this physical infrastructure contribute to the growth of state revenues, of course, strictly observing and protecting all the rules related to the management of historical and cultural monuments. Moreover, this is not something new in the world, even in many capitals, there are centuries-old buildings that are leased to the private sector, that is, it is the right model and brings billions of revenue to the state, but on the other hand, these historical and cultural monuments are preserved, and under state control the private sector performs this function much better than public administration bodies often do.

But in general, we are discussing this strategy and seem to be close to adopting it at the conceptual level. We also think that such public investments should be made in those areas that are not very attractive for the private sector at the moment, because we have areas in the city of Yerevan, including non-central areas, which are very attractive for the private sector even today, and the logic of making state investments there, I think, is not justified. On the contrary, we should make public investments in those sectors that are not at all attractive or less attractive for the private sector, which means that when large-scale public investments are made in those sectors, they will also become attractive and in a sense can be a very good stimulus for economic growth.

If we look deeper into the issue, in reality, this is a matter of the standards of the country, starting from the state administration system, logistics, what is the effect of the state administration system being located in the small center on traffic complications. I am sure that all of you are faced with all these things on a daily basis, there are also restrictions related to the access of citizens, etc. But on the way to realizing this idea, of course, the district of justice is the first part. If we successfully launch this and begin implementation, the idea will most likely develop and expand in that direction as well."

Next, Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan and his deputy Ara Mkrtchyan reported to Prime Minister Pashinyan about the results of the study on the construction of the justice district. The possible models for the creation of the mentioned infrastructure, the proposals regarding the departments and bodies to be located there, etc., were presented for discussion.

During the exchange of ideas, substantive, logistical, technical and other issues related to the implementation of the idea of building a justice district were discussed.

The Prime Minister highlighted the importance of continuous interdepartmental cooperation in the course of further work and gave a number of instructions to the officials based on the results of the consultation.