There Is No Judicial System Left in Armenia

When Asbed asks what can happen when the judicial system, the police, and everything else sit under one person, Aghajanian does not hedge. She cuts in to say there is no judicial system left, and repeats it. She claims the fair judges can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and states that 75% of the judges are appointed by the current government and its political group, with orders coming from above and being fulfilled regardless of the legal merits of a case.

She grounds the charge with an example, pointing to the case brought against the Catholicos as something she would call a joke if it were not so serious, and describing it as a model of how not to construct a legal case, including against Council of Europe standards. The exchange connects to the wider discussion of Pashinyan’s campaign to confiscate assets from figures like Gagik Tsarukyan, Gagik Khachatryan, and members of Robert Kocharyan’s family, which the hosts frame as part of a broader confrontation.

The clip carries because it is short, direct, and quantified. A former ambassador flatly declaring that a country’s courts no longer function, backed by a specific figure on appointed judges, is the kind of statement that travels. For audiences tracking human rights, political prisoners, and the rule of law in Armenia under Civil Contract, it distills a complex concern into a single, repeatable line. It also sets up the episode’s later argument about corruption cases being used to behead the opposition and clear the political field, giving viewers a sharp entry point into why critics see the asset campaign as political rather than judicial.