“Armenia is one of the countries that does not have rules of conduct for deputies. The work of the Armenian parliament should be strengthened in terms of transparency, and this is directly related to the adoption of the Code of Conduct for Deputies,” Marin Mrcela, President of the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) told Aravot at a press conference on June 2, in response to a question about how he would assess the work of the Armenian authorities in preventing corruption. He presented the annual report of GRECO during the press conference.
Referring to our question and the work of the Armenian parliament, Marin Mrcela presented one problem. “The accelerated procedures in the RA National Assembly are being abused, as it lacks information about the current experience related to the issue of public participation in the law-making process. We are aware that the draft code of conduct for deputies is being circulated in the RA Parliament. We are waiting for its adoption.”
Speaking about the fight against corruption in the judiciary, the President of GRECO said, “It is possible that control over the judiciary will not harm the independence of judges. The authority of the Ministry of Justice to initiate disciplinary proceedings against judges should be terminated. The current model is not compatible with the independence of the judiciary. There is still a lot of work to be done in Armenia in all these directions.”
At the same time, Marin Mrcela mentioned that the people who represent Armenia in GRECO are dedicated to their work, and they know exactly what they are doing. But he also stated that they only pass the GRECO proposals to the politicians, and the implementers are the representatives of the political leadership.
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Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
