By Mark Dovich
The Armenian government’s current level of compliance with corruption prevention standards set by the Council of Europe remains “globally unsatisfactory,” according to a recent report by the council’s anti-corruption monitoring body.
GRECO, the Council of Europe arm that tracks the fight against corruption across 50 member states, adopted its latest report on Armenia last month.
“GRECO assessed…measures taken by the authorities of Armenia to implement the recommendations given to the country in 2015. The conclusion was that Armenia is not in compliance with these recommendations,” said Lioubov Samokhina, a senior legal advisor at GRECO who was involved in preparing the report.
The report assesses Armenia’s compliance with GRECO recommendations on corruption prevention in Armenia’s legislative and judicial branches. Previous evaluation reports examined policies around political party funding, organized crime and money laundering, and numerous other issues.
The determination that Armenia’s compliance with GRECO anti-corruption standards for lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors is “globally unsatisfactory” reflects the high number of GRECO recommendations that Armenia has not fully implemented.
As a result, the Armenian government must report to GRECO on its progress implementing the organization’s corruption prevention recommendations within a year, rather than the 18 months allotted to compliant member states, Samokhina explained.
Need for anti-corruption reform in National Assembly
According to the report, the Armenian government has fully adopted seven out of the 18 recommendations put forward by GRECO in its 2015 evaluation report, all of which were aimed at preventing corruption in the legislature and judiciary. The remaining 11 recommendations remain only partly implemented.
The outstanding recommendations cover a wide variety of issues, from insufficient procedures for lawmakers and judges to declare assets and gifts to a lack of mandatory ethics and anti-corruption training for prosecutors.
In Armenia “the level of compliance [with GRECO recommendations] by members of parliament has been the lowest, comparing to judges, and especially comparing to prosecutors,” Samokhina said.
She highlighted the fact that the National Assembly, as Armenia’s one-chamber parliament is officially known, has yet to adopt a code of conduct outlining clear integrity standards for lawmakers, including regulations covering potential conflicts of interests and robust enforcement mechanisms for violations.
“In Armenia it has taken a relatively long time” to formulate a code of conduct for lawmakers, Samokhina said. “This is a clear priority [for GRECO, but] the slowness of the process might mean that MPs are reticent to accept this recommendation.”
Armenia working on recommendations: Justice Ministry
Lusine Martirosyan, a Justice Ministry spokesperson, said Friday in a statement to CivilNet that the “non-fulfillment” of 11 out of the 18 recommendations put forward by GRECO “was mainly due to the pandemic, the 2020 [Karabakh] war, as well as the 2021 snap elections.”
“As Justice Minister Karen Andreasyan stated earlier, Armenia, working with its partners in the Council of Europe, will gradually implement the remaining 11 points,” Martirosyan said.
Armenia has been a GRECO member state since 2004. Deputy Justice Minister Kristine Grigoryan leads Armenia’s delegation to the organization.
