On 4 February 2019, representative of the “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” non-governmental organisation Artyom Mesropyan participated in a discussion on the Draft Law on Making Changes and Additions in the RA Code of Administrative Legal Proceedings and Related Draft Laws which was organised by the RA “Centre for Development of Legislation and Legal Research” foundation by the Ministry of Justice.
Representatives of the RA judiciary, lawyer community, interested agencies and civil society participated in the discussion.
Positively evaluating the fact that the draft laws on Making Changes and Additions in the RA Code of Administrative Legal Proceedings and Making Additions in the Law on Non-Governmental Organisations will make it possible for non-governmental organisations to dispute in court the legitimacy of all the sub-legal normative legal acts, which will give them an additional opportunity to organise the protection of their beneficiaries’ rights more effectively as main actors fulfilling the function of civic oversight. However, the organisation’s representative suggested making the controversial regulation of the above draft an additional subject for discussion. According to this regulation, when a non-governmental organisation applies to the administrative court with a request to dispute the legitimacy of sub-legal normative legal acts, they need to also present evidence on that organisation’s work in that sector at least over the previous two years.
We find that the mentioned requirement has not been set out in a sufficiently distinct manner which not only can lead to processes difficult in terms of proving, give judges a chance to apply discretionary powers in terms of making decisions on the relevance of certain types of evidence, but it can also create additional obstacles for non-governmental organisations to exercise their right to apply to the court more frequently.
The photo has been taken from the website of the RA Ministry of Justice
