Gagik Jahangirian resigned as acting chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in July 2022 amid uproar caused by a secretly recorded audio of his February 2021 conversation with Ruben Vartazarian, who headed the powerful body at the time.
Vartazarian fell out with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in late 2020 as he was accused of encouraging Armenian courts to free arrested opposition figures.
In the 14-minute recording full of profanities uttered by him, Jahangirian can be heard warning Vartazarian to resign or face criminal charges. The latter was indicted and suspended as SJC chairman in April 2021. Jahangirian replaced him as a result.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case shortly after Vartazarian publicized the scandalous audio in June 2022. The committee said in December that it found no evidence that Jahangirian obstructed justice or committed other crimes.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General decided this month to reopen the criminal case, instructing another law-enforcement agency, the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) to conduct a new inquiry.
Vartazarian said on Tuesday that he is highly skeptical about the outcome of the probe ordered by the prosecutors. The former SJC chief argued, in particular, that it was the ACC that brought criminal charges against him after he refused to succumb to the alleged government blackmail.
“Can you imagine the Anti-Corruption Committee [objectively] investigating a case in which it itself exerted pressure on me?” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Jahangirian claimed last year that he simply tried to trick, rather than blackmail, Vartazarian into resigning as head of the state body that nominates judges and can also dismiss them.
After Jahangirian took over the SJC in April 2021, Armenian courts rarely rejected arrest warrants sought by law-enforcement authorities for opposition figures prosecuted on various charges rejected by them as politically motivated. Independent and pro-opposition media outlets regularly accused Jahangirian of pressuring judges to make such decisions. He denied that.
Opposition leaders have portrayed the recording as further proof of their claims that Western-backed “judicial reforms” declared by Pashinian’s administration are in fact aimed at increasing government influence on Armenian courts.
Pashinian admitted in June that the scandal has cast a shadow over his handling of the judiciary. In October, he installed his former justice minister, Karen Andreasian, as new chairman of the SJC. A member of the judicial watchdog stepped down a few days later, saying that it can no longer protect judicial independence in the country.