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Ex-Prosecutor Lambastes Armenia’s Law Enforcement, Judiciary


Armenia - Gagik Jhangirian, Armenian opposition activist, former Deputy Prosecutor-General, Undated
Armenia - Gagik Jhangirian, Armenian opposition activist, former Deputy Prosecutor-General, Undated

Armenia’s former deputy prosecutor general, who spent nearly 16 months in jail in connection with last year’s post-election developments before being amnestied and released last week, has leveled harsh criticism at the country’s law-enforcement and judiciary systems, saying that both have failed to perform their proper functions, while on the contrary violating the country’s laws.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Gagik Jahangirian said the law-enforcement bodies and the judiciary in Armenia in fact violate the Constitution and laws with their routinely committed unlawful actions.

“There is no court in the Republic of Armenia independent from a higher judicial instance. The law-enforcement and judiciary sphere of the Republic of Armenia are experiencing a deep and widespread crisis of justice and administration of justice. As a result, citizens of Armenia have found themselves in a totally defenseless situation in their own country,” said Jahangirian.

Jahangirian implied he had been aware about problems within the systems while first heading Armenia’s military prosecutor’s office and then serving as deputy prosecutor general.

“Why do you think that these problems have become visible for me only during the past year and a half?” he told journalists who kept pressing the former employee of the prosecutorial system for answers.

To the question why he did not raise his concerns over numerous illegal trials of opposition members after the April 2004 violence, Jahangirian said: “I saw the will and determination of a political figure to carry out reforms of the value system only in Levon Ter-Petrosian. That is why I came in 2008. Forgive me if that was late.”
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