The draft justice sector strategy was discussed at the regular session of the Public Council under the Minister of Justice, including issues of reducing the workload of the courts, out-of-court settlement of disputes, and increasing the efficiency of administration.
Speaking, Gurgen Grigoryan, President of the Armenian Association of Developers NGO, touched upon the issue of non-application in practice of the mechanisms of retroactive claim (regression) provided for in Article 108 of the RA Law “On the Fundamentals of Administration and Administrative Proceedings” and Article 1074 of the RA Civil Code. In particular, damages caused to citizens and businessmen as a result of unlawful actions or inaction of administrative bodies are compensated at the expense of state or community budgets, while recourse mechanisms are almost never applied to officials responsible for this.
As a result, the burden of damage is borne by the state and communities, and guilty officials, as a rule, avoid property liability, although the legislation provides sufficient legal instruments to hold them liable, which can become an important incentive for increasing the quality and efficiency of administration.
It was emphasized that without effective mechanisms for personal property liability of officials, it is difficult to expect a significant improvement in the quality and efficiency of administration.
The parties agreed to continue discussions in order to find systemic solutions to the issue.