Ombudsman: Judicial Department collects illegal state duties from citizens

Armenian Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan issued a statement today saying that Armenia’s Judicial Department collects illegal state duties from citizens for provision of copies of several types of documents.

Under the Law on State Duty, citizens must pay for copies of judicial acts, documents attached to a claim, and sound record carriers of a court sitting. No other payments of state duty are envisaged and such phenomena contradict the Armenian law, the Ombudsman’s statement says, noting that a lot of citizens applied to the Ombudsman in connection with violation of the abovementioned clause and Karen Andreasyan made a decision about a human rights violation.

“The problem can be solved by making respective legislative amendments. In other words, it is planned to make such amendments, under which the state duty will be collected on legal grounds. It is necessary to state that the amount of a payment should reflect actual expenses on preparation of the required documents’ copies.

We hope that the appropriate state bodies will rapidly take the necessary measures to solve the problem legally. Ombudsman is ready to cooperate on the resolution to this problem. Prior to the respective legislative amendments, Ombudsman urges that the collection of illegal duties be stopped,” the statement reads.