Appointment Procedure of Prosecutors 
Appointment procedure of prosecutors
The Prosecutor General shall be appointed by the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia upon nomination by the President of RA, for six- year term. The same person should not be appointed as the Prosecutor General for more than two consecutive terms.
The deputies Prosecutor General shall be appointed by the President of the Republic upon nomination by the Prosecutor General.
To the position of a deputy Prosecutor General can be appointed a person, who has at least 5 years of experience working as a judge, prosecutor, advocate, investigator, or lawyer in a state or local government body, or at least 10 years of experience as a lawyer.
The Yerevan City prosecutor, the Yerevan City’s districts prosecutors, the Marz prosecutors, garrison military prosecutors, the heads of departments of the General Prosecution Office shall be appointed by the Prosecutor General from among persons, included in the Promotion List of Prosecutors, if the Qualification Committee has issued a positive opinion on the appointment of the person to a certain position. When appointed to the position, a person shall be removed from the Promotion List of Prosecutors by the Prosecutor General.
Senior prosecutors of the General Prosecution Office, division heads of the General Prosecution Office, deputy department heads of the General Prosecution Office, deputy prosecutors of the Yerevan City, Yerevan City’s districts, of Marzes, deputy military prosecutors of garrisons, the deputies of the Military Prosecutor, senior prosecutors functioning within the departments and divisions of the General Prosecution Office, senior prosecutors of the prosecution offices of the Yerevan City, Yerevan City’s districts, Marzes and of the military prosecution offices of garrisons, the division heads of the Central Military Prosecution Office, senior prosecutors of the Central Military Prosecution Office, senior prosecutors functioning within the divisions of the Central Military Prosecution Office shall be appointed by the Prosecutor General from among the persons, included in the Promotion List of Prosecutors. When appointed to a position, a person shall be removed from the Promotion List of Prosecutors by the Prosecutor General.
Prosecutors of General Prosecution Office, prosecutors functioning within the departments and divisions of General Prosecution Office, prosecutors of the prosecution offices of the Yerevan City, Yerevan City’s districts, Marzes, and the military prosecution offices of garrisons, prosecutors functioning within the divisions of the Central Military Prosecution Office shall be appointed by the Prosecutor General from among persons, included in the Promotion List of Prosecutors. When appointed to a position, a person shall be removed from the Promotion List of Prosecutors by the Prosecutor General.
General Requirements for prosecutors
• Bachelors degree or a specialist with diploma degree in higher education in legal sciences obtained in Republic of Armenia, or a similar degree obtained in a foreign state which has been recognized and confirmed in Armenia according the procedure stipulated by law,
• Masters the literary Armenian language.
Holding a position in the Prosecution may not persons, who:
• Has been declared by court to have no legal capacity or limited capacity,
• Has been convicted by a crime, regardless of whether the conviction has expired or eliminated,
• Has a physical handicap or illness that hinders his appointment to the position of prosecutor (the list of illnesses and handicaps are defined by the Government),
• Has not completed the mandatory military service, excepted the persons that were relieved of such service with the procedure and on a ground prescribed by law,
• His criminal prosecution has been terminated on a non-acquittal ground.
The procedure of preparing the List of Prosecutor Candidates
According the article 34 of the law “On the Prosecution” of the RA, the List of prosecutor candidates shall be prepared by the Qualification Committee attached to Prosecutor General.
The List of prosecutor candidates shall be supplemented once a year, as a rule, in January of each year by an open competition carried out with the procedure defined by the Prosecutor General. In order to supplement the List of Prosecutor Candidates, an additional test of aspirants may be carried out during the year, in a case of certain instruction of the Prosecutor General.
For supplementing the list of prosecutor candidates, the Qualification Committee shall publish an announcement about accepting the applications, at least one month in advance.
A person aspiring to be included in the list of prosecutor candidates must present:
1. A personal identification document;
2. A document confirming the higher legal education;
3. A card containing the aspirant’s biographic data, including the description of the professional legal work carried out after obtaining a lawyer’s degree with a relevant evidence of such work (including job description or other documents confirming the duties that are to be considered as professional legal experience);
4. Male aspirants a document confirming the performing of mandatory military service or has been relieved or deffered of such service according the procedure prescribed by law;
5. A document confirming the absence of illnesses and handicap that hinder one’s appointment to the position of prosecutor, issued in accordance with the list of illnesses stipulated by the Government;
6. An applicant has a right to present also recommendation letters.
Applications submitted in breach of the deadline for submission and applications that do not meet the requirements stipulated by law shall be rejected and returned by the Qualification Committee within three working days. The decision of the Qualification Committee to reject an application may be appealed to the administrative court by the applicant within three working days after receiving the rejection. The administrative court shall examine and solve the case within three days of receiving it. A judicial appeal against the decision of the Qualification Committee to reject the application, do not suspend the procedure of accepting applications and compiling the list of prosecutor candidates, stipulated by law. If the rejection of application is found unlawful by the court, the applicants applications shall be subject to consideration by the Qualification Committee.
After checking the documents presented by the applicant the Qualification Committee makes a decision whether to allow the person to the competition or not. The competition is carried out by test and interview.
An applicant shall pass the test, prepared by the Qualification Committee. The Qualification Committee checks and makes its conclusions about the results of the tests of applicants and publishes the list of persons allowed to the interview. The interview shall be carried out the same or the next day.
After the interview the Qualification Committee makes a certain decision on each person by open voting. The candidacies of the applicants, about whom the Qualification Committee issues a positive opinion shall be submitted to the Prosecutor General for including them in a list of prosecutor candidates, according the procedure stipulated by the law “On prosecution” of the RA.
A person included in the list of prosecutor candidates shall, according with the procedure stipulated by the Prosecutor General, complete a program of studies in Prosecutorial School and then take a qualification exam. A person that has not passed the qualification exam shall be removed from the list of prosecutor candidates.
A person shall be relieved of the requirements of study in the Prosecutorial School if he:
1. Has a three years experience of work as a prosecutor, judge, investigator, unless 5 years have passed since he performed such work;
2. Has a PhD degree in law;
3. Has a PhD Candidate degree of law and five years of experience of working as a lawyer.
At the request of a person relieved from the study in the Prosecutorial School, the Qualification Committee may consider the issue of including the applicant at the same time in both the list of prosecutor candidates and in the official Promotion List of Prosecutors.
The Promotion List of Prosecutors shall be compiled by the Qualification Committee during the regular attestation of prosecutors.
