US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN6

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000006 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN AND DRL 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, AM 
SUBJECT:  ARMENIA STRENGTHENS ADVOCATES AND PUBLIC 
DEFENDERS 
 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. (SBU) The Armenian National Assembly adopted 
legislation December 14 that creates a potentially 
powerful Chamber of Advocates for criminal defense 
lawyers and seeks to improve the state-funded public 
defender's program.  Local legal assistance groups 
believe the changes may help level the playing field in 
a court system that often favors the prosecution.  The 
legislation attempts to rectify deficiencies in defense 
lawyers' qualifications, organization, training, 
ethics, and funding.  While the new organization has 
not begun to take shape, the law describes institutions 
likely to improve criminal defense lawyers' abilities 
to advocate for their clients.  We intend to work with 
this group as it develops.  End Summary. 
 
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CURRENT CRIMINAL DEFENSE 
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2. (SBU) According to the local representative of the 
American Bar Association's Central European and 
Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI), criminal defense 
lawyers in Armenia are poorly trained, underpaid, and 
bound only by vague ethical restraints.  As a result, 
they often do not effectively assert their clients' 
rights and sometimes become a vehicle through which 
defendants try to bribe judges.  The Armenian 
Constitution guarantees every criminal defendant a 
lawyer, but court-appointed attorneys frequently 
collude with the prosecution.  According to ABA/CEELI's 
2003 Legal Profession Reform Index for Armenia, 
prosecutors often choose the lawyer who will be their 
opposing counsel, decide which information to give the 
defense, and decide how much to pay the defense lawyer. 
For this reason, indigent Armenians frequently waive 
their right to counsel and defend themselves in 
criminal court. 
 
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LAW ON ADVOCACY 
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3. (SBU) The Law on Advocacy approved by the National 
Assembly December 14 has three main goals: to create a 
unified organization to enforce ethical standards, 
encourage higher standards for the training of 
advocates, and create a public defender's program 
controlled by the advocates.  (Note:  In Armenia, the 
term "advocate" refers only to lawyers who represent 
criminal defendants in court.  End Note.)  The law 
creates a Chamber of Advocates, which has sole 
authority over testing, licensing, and discipline of 
advocates.  The law codifies ethical concepts such as 
conflict of interest and client privilege, but also 
establishes an ethics committee within the Chamber that 
has the power to elaborate on these basic ethical 
standards.  The law separates the public defender's 
office from State control but mandates that the 
government will pay public defenders at the same rate 
as prosecutors.  The law also seeks to secure the 
Chamber's independence and objectivity.  The Chamber 
reports to no branch of the government and is almost 
completely supported by member dues.  It is subject to 
a yearly external audit, which will be reported to the 
membership.  The law also establishes due process for 
disciplinary procedures and enumerates the rights of 
individual advocates within the organization. 
 
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NOT OUT OF THE WOODS 
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4. (SBU) The traditions of Soviet law practice, 
however, still hang over the legal profession in 
Armenia and may endanger the effectiveness of the new 
institution.  Armenian defense attorneys and judges 
have long followed the prosecutor's lead in criminal 
cases, and much of the "old guard" advocates have found 
this arrangement both comfortable and profitable since 
Armenian independence.  Furthermore single judges still 
decide most Armenian criminal cases and there is no 
guarantee that decisions will change even if defense 
skills dramatically improve.  The law combines two 
previously separate lawyers' associations, and members 
of the more progressive union, which prides itself on 
protecting civil liberties, fear that more conservative 
members will outvote them in the unified Chamber. 
 
COMMENT 
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5. (SBU) The new Chamber has the potential to improve 
significantly the abilities of advocates to assert 
their clients' rights, and even if conservatives were 
to seize control of the Chamber, the law affords many 
opportunities through which dissenters could promote 
human rights.  Significant checks and balances within 
the organization prevent a faction from controlling the 
Chamber, and the law protects individual advocates from 
arbitrary disciplinary procedures.  Progressive 
advocates could use structures within the organization 
to advance their agenda, and as allowed by the law, 
they are currently forming a watchdog NGO to monitor 
civil rights in criminal trials.  The new Chamber could 
be a great force for change, but we will continue to 
monitor if the Chamber lives up to this potential. 
This body, when it is formed, would be a natural 
partner for our assistance programs aimed at building 
Armenia's democratic institutions.  We will work with 
this group as it develops. 
GODFREY