On 30 July, the participants of the advanced and practical skills development phase of the training program for young professionals and the face-to-face phase of the budgetary training program for the representatives of the CSO/Mass Media launched within the “Budgets for Citizens” project visited the RA Ministry of Justice where they met with Mr. Tigran Areyan, Deputy Secretary General and Ms Zara Margaryan, the Head of Financial and Economic Department of the Ministry. The visit was organized in the scope of the EU funded “Budgets for Citizens” Project, one of which target sectors is Justice.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Areyan welcomed the participants and presented the activities implemented by the Ministry in the budget process in general, and then the representative of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan, presented the main objective of the project, the actions and results achieved so far, the scope of the knowledge that the young professionals and representatives of CSOs and Mass Media received within the framework of the training as well as the expectations from the meeting at the MoJ.

Further, Ms Margaryan spoke about the programs implemented by the Ministry and individual measures carried out under it, and at the same time presented information about the cost effectiveness of those measures.

After Ms Margaryan’s speech, the discussion continued in a question and answer format.

Participant of the budget training program, journalist of “Asparez” Journalists’ Club Ms Karine Kazarova, referred to the problem encountered in almost all marzes, according to which there is a problem of transportation of detained persons, and wondered whether certain resources are planned in the budget in connection with the solution of this issue. In response, the representative of the Ministry of Justice answered positively, stating that it is planned to provide resources aimed at solving these issues in the budget in the near future.

Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan made an observation regarding the issue that sources not prohibited by legislation are mentioned in the funding sources section of the strategic documents. These sources, as a rule, are either from the state budget or grants allocated by international organizations. She wondered, how it is decided in such a cases, which specific measure should be carried out at the expense of the sources based on  target priorities of the RA at the moment, or there is another methodology applied. In response, the representative of the Ministry of Justice stated that the source of funding for each event is determined based on the target priorities at the given moment.

The participants raised a lot of questions regarding participatory budgeting, in particular, what are the existing problems and how can the civil society contribute to the solution of these problems, and in general how can it support this process. In response to these questions, the colleagues from the Ministry of Justice mentioned that the best way to support this process is active participation in the public discussions of the budget applications, because all the proposals of the civil society are collected and discussed immediately. The partners of the Ministry also expressed hope that the “Budgets for Citizens” program will contribute to that active participation and submission of proposals.

The “Budgets 4 Citizens” (B4C) action (8 December, 2022 – 7 December, 2026) is being implemented with the financial support of the European Union by the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, in cooperation with partners “Economic Development and Research Center” (EDRC) NGO and “Agora Central Europe” NGO (Czech Republic).