The attached is a 7-page “Assessment of Armenia’s Court Crisis,” with an analysis of the Armenian parliament’s recent adoption of legislation to reform and restructure the Constitutional Court, as well as notable concerns and analytical observations regarding the broader implications for legal and judicial reform in Armenia.
In a recent assessment of developments in Armenia, the RSC published an analysis on 15 June entitled, “No Rest or Respite for Armenian Politics,” focusing on the confrontation between the Armenian government and the notorious petty “oligarch,” Gagik Tsarukyan, and his opposition “Prosperous Armenia” Party.
RSC Director Richard Giragosian was the guest of the weekly Facebook podcast hosted by European Parliamentarians, former two-time Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and former Lithuanian Minister of Defense Rasa Jukneviciene. He presented a broad and sweeping overview of the Armenia’s accomplishments and achievements in democratic reform while also assessing the difficult geopolitical challenges facing Armenia, including dealing with Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran, the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) peace process, as well as the country’s strategic relations with Russia and the European Union (EU).
In the first segment of a two-part interview with Meline Petrosyan for 365news.am published on 28 May, RSC Director Richard Giragosian commented on Armenian-German relations and assessed German foreign policy and diplomacy related to the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict. In the second part of the interview, Giragosian focused on the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) recent ruling that determined that Azerbaijan violated a key European convention by pardoning, rewarding and glorifying an Azerbaijani army officer who brutally murdered an Armenian officer in a barbaric attack with an axe during a NATO course in Hungary in 2004. This ruling found that Azerbaijan’s actions amounted to the “approval” and “endorsement” of the “very serious, ethnically-biased crime” committed by the officer, Ramil Safarov.
In a podcast recording of an interview with RSC Director Richard Giragosian, “New Europe” editor Adam Reichardt devoted the “Talk Eastern Europe 37” episode to offer an “Update on Armenia.” Hosted by Maciej Makulski, the episode reviewed a number of recent developments in Armenia, including an assessment of the Armenian government’s reform programme and relations with Russia before moving to a focus on how Armenia has managed the COVID-19 crisis, with added analysis of the implications for Armenian relations with the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union. The interview also assessed the shifts in regional relations including with Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran as well as how the crisis has impacted the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
https://neweasterneurope.eu/2020/05/16/talk-eastern-europe-37-update-on-armenia/