Chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the first meeting of the Anticorruption Policy Council was held today in the Office of Government.

Opening the meeting, Prime Minister Pashinyan delivered a speech, in which he stated:

“Today we are holding the first meeting of the Anticorruption Policy Council, and before proceeding to the agenda, I would like to make a few comments.

What was the main problem in the fight against corruption in the Republic of Armenia? The problem was that there used to be much talk about it, but the reality did not change as a matter of fact. There were many reasons for this, and the most important of them was the lack of political will, and the fight against corruption and the countering mechanisms never lived up to the extent and content of the criticism. It seems to be unequivocal and obvious that the government of the Republic of Armenia has the maximum political will to wage a principled fight against corruption, but today the fight against corruption is falling short the Government’s political will. Why? The situation is as follows, and now we can say this, primarily because of the lack of institutionalized mechanisms. Of course, I have spoken about this several times, and systemic causes, including possible systemic resistance, cannot be ignored here, and today we are faced with the task of creating such anticorruption mechanisms that would fully comply with the political will expressed by the Government and the parliamentary majority of the Republic of Armenia.

Indeed, we are facing specific challenges, the most important of which for me personally is that we must organize the fight against corruption in such ways, forms and structures as could in no way undermine the democratic image or democratic reality of the Republic of Armenia. This is crucial, and must set it as a priority task. However, it is obvious and unambiguous that the fight against corruption in the most decisive way is an indisputable task for the government and the parliamentary majority of the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, I consider it very important to note that by saying corruption we mean not only corruption committed in the past, but also the corruption we have today, and more importantly, future corruption. That is, one should never put such a differentiation, because, in my opinion, corruption was dangerous in the past, corruption is more dangerous now, and corruption will be more and more dangerous for our country and people in the future. And therefore, with swift but not speedy and reckless steps, we need to provide guarantees that corruption will never cover such a massive scale and influence as it did in the past.

I wish to thank our parliamentary colleagues, the ombudsman and the representatives of those non-governmental organizations involved in this process by agreement rather than ex-officio. I hope we can make our collaboration truly effective.”

Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan presented the draft Anticorruption Strategy and the Action Plan for its implementation, which is posted on e-draft.am. He noted that the document is still in circulation in state bodies, and discussions are continuing with civil society and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

Presenting the strategy, the Minister of Justice noted that the main goal of the anticorruption strategy is to ensure the consistent implementation of the conceptual provisions and principles of the fight against corruption proclaimed by the government in all necessary directions.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks were put forward: creating and developing the necessary institutional framework, shaping the image of a law-abiding and respectable public servant, reducing the possibility of applying dual approaches in regulating the sectoral legislative field, prolonged introduction of transparency and participation tools to ensure public control, improving the effectiveness of corruption disclosure. cases through the establishment of effective legal and practical mechanisms, etc.

The Minister touched upon the adoption of the draft law of the Republic of Armenia “On confiscation of illegally acquired property” in the framework of the fight against corruption. He said that the draft law is at the final stage, the results of international expertise were received, which are now being generalized. In the near future, the bill will be compiled and submitted for public discussion.

The Minister of Justice presented the main conceptual directions of the Strategy for the Judicial and Legal Reforms of the Republic of Armenia for 2019-2023. According to him, the reforms shall be implemented in two stages: short-term (October 2019 - October 2020) and long-term (October 2020 - December 2023). Short-term reforms include developing the necessary legal framework for assessing the integrity of judges and submitting projects to the National Assembly, building capacity and logistical support for members of the Commission on Preventing Corruption, strengthening the guarantees arising from the status of judges.

Short-term reforms imply the introduction of the proposed e-justice system in 2019-2023, including automatic collection of statistics and archives digitization, improvement of the criminal legislation of the Republic of Armenia, and so on.

A number of recommendations were voiced during the exchange of views that followed the Justice Minister’s report concerning the framework, status, functions and staffing of the Anticorruption Committee, the powers vested in the Commission for Prevention of Corruption, the systemic fight against corruption, the system of income declarations, the monitoring process, the integrity of judges, the mechanisms for checking the assets of public officials, their transparency, integrity, etc.

Prime Minister Pashinyan told the Minister of Justice to follow up the discussion with the public stakeholders and civil society in order to submit a finalized draft for discussion at the next council meeting.