Armenian lawyers condemn SJC statement

Five Armenian human rights lawyers on Saturday condemned a statement by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), saying it crossed “acceptable limits” in institutional relations with the legal community and amounted to an attempt to silence criticism.

In a joint statement issued by the Five Human Rights Defenders initiative, the group said it “strongly condemns” a declaration published on the SJC’s Facebook page on Februarys 20, describing it as “an overt attempt to silence the critical speech of lawyers and human rights advocates and to curb their professional activities.”

The advocates said the statement attributed to the SJC “goes beyond the acceptable boundaries of institutional relations with the legal community,” warning that such conduct risks creating “an artificial confrontation” between the bar and the judiciary.

The dispute follows a public appeal by the SJC urging lawyers to refrain from publishing posts on social media that it said contain defamatory information and insults directed at judges.

In its statement, the SJC said it was concerned about a number of recent posts by lawyers targeting judges, which it argued do not comply with professional ethics and tend to discredit individual judges and the judiciary as a whole.