Legal Regorm in Armenia Through CEELI

by Rafayel Mgdesyan

A few weeks ago I happened to be enjoying a Java Chip Frappuccino at Starbucks with a few friends of mine while simultaneously engaged in casual conversation, when all of the sudden the rhetoric inevitably turned to the beloved topic held dear to the hearts of many Armenian men—Armenian politics!

Eventually we came around to discussing the legal system in Armenia and one of my friends mentioned how he felt the system of laws currently in place in Armenia is ridiculously corrupt and ineffective. At this point I felt the unrelenting curiosity to research further into the national institution to gain deeper understanding on some of the issues relating to legal reform.

Since Armenia’s independence in 1991, legal reform has been painfully slow and deliberate process in which old attitudes and practices from decades of communist rule seem to be embedded within the fabric of the nation’s political institutions. Furthermore, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has produced an economic blockade under the auspices of Turkey and Azerbaijan, which have led to extremely low levels of funding for Armenia’s judiciary.

This is economic development in conjunction with allegations of corruption have undoubtedly undermined the credibility of the legal system.

However, even at its most fragile point, the legal system in Armenia did indeed bend, but did not break. In 1996 the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative began its rule of law program in Armenia in order to set the wheels in motion for legal reform.

Through CEELI’s sponsorship and assistance, a number of crucial achievements have become reality. These include the creation of the first Public Defenders office in Armenia, an Association of Judges of the Republic of Armenia, a new and revised Code of Judicial Conduct, the formation of a Chamber of Advocates and appropriate qualification examinations for these Advocates, which would essentially be the Armenian version of a national bar association.

These are just a few of the many specific reforms that are being implemented. The refreshing reality of the CEELI’s philanthropic project in Armenia is that it primarily consists of enthusiastic and young Armenian-American legal professionals.

These individuals have received their legal education in the United States and have made a conscious decision to go back to the motherland to implement change from the bottom up in a grass roots revamping of the entire legal system.

The overriding layout of this plan is divided in to four programs of legal reform. The first includes Legal Profession Reform which has its primary focus on the creation of self-sufficient associations of lawyers, in addition to the professional development of lawyers and accessibility of resources to these professionals.

This aspect of professional reform realized a major achievement in December 2004 with the creation of the previously mentioned Chamber of Advocates.

The next major program is that of Legal Education Reform, with its resources directed toward reforming Armenia’s legal curriculum in conjunction with the establishment of legal clinics at the university level.

This includes the city of Vanazdhor at Mkhitar Gosh Armenian-Russian International University and support of several other national universities of Gyumri and Yerevan.

CEELI’s last two programs consist of Judicial Reform and Criminal Law reform, respectively.Major incremental steps such as the creation and subsequent coming into operation of the Public Defender Agency (January 1, 2006) and the legal training for defense attorneys in trial advocacy skills along with the establishment of a new Criminal Procedure Code.

CEELI’s introduction of legal reform in Armenia over the past decade has provided a positive future for generations of law students.