An event dedicated to the International Anti-Corruption Day was held in the framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project on 19 December. The RA Anti-Corruption Strategy 2019-2022 was discussed during the first part of the event.
In his welcoming speech, Deputy Minister of Justice Suren Krmoyan noted that this is an exceptional case, when the draft strategy is first discussed with civil society organisations.
“Today’s event is unprecedented due to the fact that this strategy is primarily presented for the opinion with the civil society. Simultaneously it has been sent to all state bodies. This means that the role of the civil society and the development of participatory policies in the anti-corruption sphere are highly appreciated,” Suren Krmoyan said.
President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Coordinator of Secretariat of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition Karen Zadoyan said that they had applied to the government with a request to postpone the adoption of the strategy for a few months so that CSOs could participate in its development.
“If the Government decides to postpone the adoption of the strategy, we will have the opportunity to make the new anti-corruption strategy more legitimate and professional document. It will be a breakthrough document that will bring real changes to the lives of people. I welcome the Government’s approach that the document is based on 3 basic pillars of anti-corruption fight: anti-corruption education, prevention of corruption and inevitability of punishment,” he said.
“If the government decides to postpone the adoption of the strategy, we will have the opportunity to make a new anti-corruption strategy more legitimate and professional. It will be a breakthrough document that will bring real changes to people’s lives. I welcome the Government’s approach that the document is based on three pillars of fight against corruption, which are: anti-corruption education, prevention of corruption and inevitability of punishment,” he said.
Karen Zadoyan informed that 49 recommendations were made to incorporate in the RA Anti-Corruption Strategy, including the establishment of a universal anti-corruption body, establishment of the register of beneficial owners, recovery and restoration of the stolen assets, anti-corruption education, anti-corruption courts, introduction of anticorruption compliance programs in commercial companies, etc. within the framework of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project and “Armenia: Promoting Anti-Corruption Conduct and Reforms” Project. Some of the recommendations have already been incorporated in the draft strategy, but there is still much to do.
During the event, a number of participants expressed concern that anti-corruption education was not fully reflected in the strategy, as such; the decentralized model of an anti-corruption body, in the form of one law enforcement and one preventive body, has been adopted, criminal liability for legal persons is not provided either, which will decrees the interest of the trade companies to introduce anti-corruption compliance programs and so on. Ms. Mariam Zadoyan, Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellow and Anti-Corruption Expert, has raised the issue that the concept of beneficial ownership has a formal nature, it does not provide a legal obligation for commercial companies is to provide information on their beneficial owners.
More than 90 representatives of government agencies and civil society organizations attended the event.
Here is the list of participants of the discussion and list of invitees.
The “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by a Consortium of civil society organisations, which are the Armenian Lawyers’ Association (lead organisation), Agora Central Europe (NGO based in the Czech Republic), the Armenian Centre for Democratic Education-CIVITAS, the International Centre for Human Development, the SME Cooperation Association and the Union of Communities of Armenia.
The project aims to enhance the influence of civil society organisations (CSOs) and CSO coalitions/networks on public policies in Armenia. This will allow organisations that are already working in sectoral coalitions to access additional resources, new groups of civil society experts to come together and encourage place their causes on the local and national policy agenda, to identify common concerns and priorities and approach government bodies with constructive and strategic policy engagement initiatives.
The project has provided sub-grants to 9 CSO coalitions that will be directed to the development of public policies and will have tangible results in the 9 target sectors selected within the project, which are: Justice, Human Rights, Public Finance Management, Business, Education, Social Sector (social inclusion of children with disabilities), Agriculture, Economy and Energy.
