Let’s suppose if someone accuses me of stealing apples from the market then I am not obliged at all to prove that I am not engaged in such “black deeds.” The burden of proving my sin falls entirely on the one who imputes the crime to me. This is called ” presumption of innocence”.
Once one of the deputies said that the oppositionists were the “Azerbaijani spies” and added that if they did not agree with that then let them bring a reference from the Azerbaijani special services that they were not spies. Actually, the deputy himself should bring a reference or another argument to prove that his opponents have committed that horrendous crime.
In my opinion the principal of the presumption of innocence should not apply to a state official in the case if there is a doubt that s/he lives more luxuriously than his/her legal profits allow. In that case s/he herself/himself must prove that the “sources of the luxury” are legal. For that there is a respective UN convention on the “Fight against Corruption”, the 20th article of which criminalizes the illegal enrichment. it should be stated that the main countries of Western Europe and the United States do not have such an article in their Criminal Code, and Germany, the Czech Republic, New Zeeland and Japan did not ratify the above mentioned convention at all.
The reason is clear; these states usually succeed in “catching” the corrupted officials at earlier phases: if it is discovered that the high ranking official has taken bribe, has laundered money or has been engaged in business in privileged conditions, then the “usual” methods of the fight against corruption are enough. But in the countries like ours, we deal with the established fact, let’s suppose that an official who gets 400 thousand AMD salary has built a one-million castle, and he should “be caught” in that fact.
It is not an easy task; if such a question rises, the official can turn to his/her business partner and ostensibly “borrow” the required money backdated. S/he can register her/his business on the name of any relative, and then when the noise is cut down, s/he can receive the same castle as a “present” from the same relative. In the end, s/he can say that s/he has successfully bet in the casino, etc. That is why parallel to the illegal enrichment it is envisaged to enlarge the list of the people related to the officials who present declaration as well as to exclude certain deals by cash. Of course, with all these, it is possible that in case of a big noise the police declare that they will work on that case, the corrupted official will go to the corrupted investigator, they will come to an agreement and everything will end with this. In order to avoid all these, mutual control mechanisms are needed. But it is a topic of another conversation.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
