“The point that one of the main problems of destroying the statehood of the Republic of Armenia is corruption, I must definitely mention, by intertwined monopoly or abuse of dominant position holding people, in the economy; it is a simple truth,” said opposition MP, member of NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, Tigran Urikhanyan, in an interview with Aravot.am, referring to the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) report on Armenia published yesterday.
The judiciary in Armenia appears to be particularly prone to corruption. “There are numerous reports regarding the lack of independence of the judiciary in practice, both from external actors such as the executive power at central and local levels (including law enforcement agencies), as well as from internal judicial actors – notably, higher-instance court judges. On the other hand, serious concerns have been raised concerning “improper influence on judges through bribes and gifts.” Reminding that Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has also expressed serious concerns about the independence of the judicial system in Armenia, the Venice Commission and Armenia’s ombudsman, GRECO group calls not only keep the system free from undue interventions but also to reduce the role of the President of Armenia in the promotion of judges and dismissal process, to demand that the latter shall submit written arguments for his decisions, as well as to allow the judges to appeal these decisions made by the head of the state.
There is a special reference in the report to the appointment of the Prosecutor General. “The majority of the RA citizens if not all of all can argue about trust-distrust in the judicial system of Armenia, even if you do not read the monitoring reports regularly published by various international organizations, which even sometimes publish a price list on our judicial system,” said Tigran Urikhanyan. Pertaining to the GRECO remarks on the appointment of the Prosecutor General, he noted that he had voted “No” to the appointment of the acting Prosecutor General of the Parliament, thus expressing his disagreement and attitude to our judicial system and the provisions presented by the General Prosecutor at the Parliament.
With regard to the procedure of the appointment, he added, “The procedure in itself is logical, the matter is about the previous one as now we are in another government reality when the political monopoly is not functioning in the country. When the president nominates a candidate and the parliament as allegedly an independent legislative body carries out its vote, it can be understood. But this is in the case when the President does not have the political majority.” The NA State-Legal Committee member ruling MPs, in an interview with us, refused to comment reasoning they have not yet managed to read the report. They will talk later.
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Nelly GRIGORYAN
