Tag: transitional justice

A comprehensive list of the most high-profile investigations launched against former officials and their associates following the 2018 Velvet Revolution.

The Armenian government has initiated a broad set of cases against the oligarchs and Robber Barons of the former regime composed of the upper echelon of the previous-pyramid hierarchy. Nerses Kopalyan looks at a number of high-profile cases.

Transitional Justice is a special form of justice, applied temporarily in countries where there have been massive abuses of human rights, usurption of power or genocide. It can also applied in countries like Armenia, where important political and social transition has taken place, where at the same time, there needs to be a break with the past.

Transitional justice is a form of exceptional justice, since it is introduced for a specific period of time to deal with exceptional circumstances. This primer is based on Dr. Nerses Kopalyan’s White Paper, Transitional Justice Agenda for the Republic of Armenia and is a summary of the key points of transitional justice.

As an instrument of transitional justice, vetting is designed to “cleanse” state institutions that are tainted by systemic corruption, nepotism, and incompetence. Vetting of personnel is the first step toward the broader goal of institutional reform, writes Dr. Nerses Kopalyan.

Should Armenia implement the tools of transitional justice? This White Paper, developed by Dr. Nerses Kopalyan is a comprehensive transitional justice agenda for the Republic of Armenia.

Formulating the compatibility of transitional justice with Armenia's laws and constitutional statutes shouldn't be problematic, writes Nerses Kopalyan. However, the Pashinyan government, must go out of its way to make certain that the formation of any element of the instruments of transitional justice are fundamentally impartial, profoundly non-politicized, and unequivocally objective.

Nerses Kopalyan writes that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s declaration of war against the entrenched powers of the previous system is not simply a singular attack against corruption, but rather a broad multi-pronged strategy that envisions an ideational restructuring of Armenia’s political culture.