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The Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code will enter into force on July 1, 2022. Accordingly, it is necessary to make relevant amendments to the RA Penitentiary Code too. The draft on which was debated at the sitting of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs on May 18.

According to the RA Deputy Minister of Justice Arpine Sargsyan, the new draft Penitentiary Code comes to complete the whole package of reforms of the criminal justice chain. The representative of the executive body singled out the main changes in the penitentiary sphere, which, according to the Government can provide a qualitatively new threshold for the logic development of the system. The whole Code is built on the logic that every convict should have an individualized planning for serving a sentence. The draft innovation is that the multidisciplinary Resocialization Commission will be involved in the work with the convict starting from the quarantine department. The types of correctional facilities will be replaced by three security zones: low, medium and high, taking into account the risk and needs assessment of convicts. Mild and severe regimes of punishment will also be established, as well as changes in the system of incentives and penalties.

The new RA Criminal Procedure Code no longer includes the stage of execution of judicial acts defined in the current Code, which in fact should be envisaged in the RA Penitentiary Code, as it is already about the ongoing activities after the end of criminal proceedings.

The issues of medical assistance and service of convicts will be settled with a separate chapter for the first time.

In response to the questions of the Committee Chair Vladimir Vardanyan, the deputies Alkhas Ghazaryan, Arpine Davoyan, Vahagn Hovakimyan and Vigen Khachatryan, the Deputy Minister of Justice referred to the procedural issues related to the transfer of the convict to another security zone by the Resocialization Commission, the planning and organization of health services of 1027 convicts in the penitentiaries, differences in the separation of three security zones, parcels to convicts, the process of sending parcels etc.

In his co-report, Vladimir Vardanyan called on his colleagues to endorse the draft on condition that there will be working debates with the participation of interested representatives of the sphere and the problems that arose during the first to the second readings will be corrected.

The Committee endorsed the initiative.