Tuesday,
Armenia May Set Up Powerful Anti-Graft Body
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds a cabinet meeting in Yerevan,
June 27, 2019.
Armenia’s Justice Ministry has proposed the creation of a new anti-corruption
agency that would be empowered to prosecute state officials suspected of
bribery, fraud and other corrupt practices.
The ministry drafted last month an anti-graft strategy and a three-year plan of
actions stemming from it and submitted them to the Armenian government for
approval. The Anti-Corruption Committee would be set up as part of that
document posted on a government website.
Under the proposed strategy, the committee would have not only preventive but
also law-enforcement powers. The Justice Ministry wants it inherit those powers
from the existing Special Investigative Service (SIS), a law-enforcement agency
tasked with combatting various crimes committed by state officials.
More specifically, an SIS department dealing corruption and abuse of power
would be incorporated into the Anti-Corruption Committee. The other SIS
divisions would be merged with the Investigative Committee, another
law-enforcement body.
The SIS chief, Sasun Khachatrian, confirmed on Monday that his agency will be
abolished if the ministry’s proposals are approved by the government. “The
creation of the new anti-corruption body presupposes the dissolution of the
SIS,” Khachatrian told reporters.
“But it’s still a draft,” he said. “No concrete bill has been circulated yet.
So we will see.”
The Justice Ministry’s initial version of the anti-graft strategy was put
forward late last year and strongly criticized by civic activists. One of them,
Artur Sakunts, welcomed the latest draft on Tuesday, saying that it is far more
specific and workable.
Armenia already has an anti-corruption agency which was set up by its previous
government. The Commission on Preventing Corruption is primarily charged with
scrutinizing income and asset declarations submitted by senior officials and
investigating possible conflicts of interest among them. It can only ask
law-enforcement bodies to prosecute officials suspected of engaging in corrupt
practices or making false disclosures.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to root out corruption in
the country since he swept to power during last year’s “Velvet Revolution.”
Pashinian declared in February that his administration has already “broken the
spine of systemic corruption in Armenia.” He said it will now focus on putting
in place “institutional” safeguards against the problem.
The head of the European Union Delegation in Armenia, Piotr Switalski, said
afterwards that the current authorities in Yerevan have made “serious progress”
in their anti-corruption drive. He approved of their plans to “create a new,
independent anti-corruption agency that will have wide-ranging powers.”
Armenian, Iranian Officials Discuss Energy Projects
Iran -- Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian (R) meets with Armenia's Deputy
Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, Tehran, July 2, 2019.
Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian has met with Iran’s Energy
Minister Reza Ardakanian in Tehran for talks that reportedly focused on joint
energy projects planned or already implemented by the two neighboring states.
Grigorian travelled to the Iranian capital to chair, together with Ardakanian,
the latest session of an Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission on
bilateral economic cooperation. The two-day session began on Monday morning,
according to the official Iranian IRNA news agency.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Armenian government said the commission
discussed ways of deepening bilateral ties in a range of areas, including
energy, trade, transport and financial services. The statement quoted Grigorian
as saying that the meeting was preceded by “productive” discussions held by
Armenian-Iranian working groups. But it did not report any concrete decisions
made by the commission.
Another government statement said Grigorian and Ardakanian discussed at their
separate talks “the state of joint projects implemented by Armenia and Iran in
the sphere of energy.” It gave no details.
Grigorian met with one of Ardakanian’s deputies, Homayoun Haeri, in Yerevan on
Saturday. ISNA, another Iranian news agency, said the two men discussed
accelerating the ongoing construction of a new Armenian-Iranian power
transmission line. It was due to be completed next year or in 2021.
The new line is designed to significantly increase Armenian electricity exports
to Iran. The latter pays for them with natural gas supplied to Armenia.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed this project with Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani when he visited Tehran in February. Pashinian’s office said at
the time that they also agreed to take “practical steps” towards building a
major hydroelectric plant on the Armenian-Iranian border.
Grigorian was also reported to stress the significance of preferential trade
agreement signed by Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) last
year. He said the deal could help to boost Armenian-Iranian trade.
The latest Armenian-Iranian negotiations followed a further upsurge in tensions
between Iran and the United States. Pashinian made clear late last year that
his country will maintain its “special relationship” with the Islamic Republic
despite renewed U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran over its controversial nuclear
program.
Meeting with Pashinian in February, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei urged Yerevan to strengthen its ties with Tehran “contrary to what the
United States desires” to see.
Parliament Fails To Name Majority-Backed Candidate For Judicial Body
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Deputies from the ruling My Step alliance attend a parliament
session in Yerevan, June 28, 2019.
The pro-government majority in the National Assembly has raised eyebrows after
failing to install a new member of Armenia’s state judicial watchdog nominated
by it.
The ruling My Step alliance last week nominated Anna Margarian, a law professor
at Yerevan State University, for a vacant seat in the Supreme Judicial Council.
Margarian had to be backed by at least 80 members of the 132-member parliament.
With My Step holding 88 parliament seats, her election seemed a forgone
conclusion.
However, only 66 deputies voted for Margarian in secret ballot on Monday.
Nineteen others voted against her appointment to the SJC.
Only one parliamentary force, the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK), spoke
out against her candidacy before the vote.
A senior LHK parliamentarian, Gevorg Gorgisian, on Tuesday accused My Step of
demonstrating an “unserious attitude” towards its own nominee. Gorgisian said
he believes that some pro-government lawmakers broke ranks to vote against
Margarian.
My Step’s parliamentary leader, Lilit Makunts, ruled out such a possibility.
She said no member of the parliament majority had objected to Margarian’s
appointment.
However, another senior My Step lawmaker, Vahagn Hovakimian, did not exclude
that some of his pro-government colleagues voted against her “for some reasons.”
Armenia - Anna Margarian, a candidate for the Supreme Judicial Council, speaks
in the parliament, July 1, 2019.
Hovakimian suggested that Margarian would have been elected if about two dozen
deputies had not been absent from Armenia on Monday due to business trips
abroad. According to information available on the parliament’s website, 12 of
them are from My Step.
Armenian law allows My Step to again nominate Margarian for the SJC. Makunts
said that later on Monday the bloc led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian made
such an offer to Margarian but that the latter was “not inclined” to accept it.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service, Margarian made clear that she does not
“find it expedient” to again run for the SJC. She insisted that she was not
offended by the outcome of the parliament vote.
The SJC has wide-ranging constitutional powers, including the right to nominate
judges appointed by the president of the republic. It can also sanction and
even terminate judges.
The SJC was effectively paralyzed by the resignations of five of its nine
members last month just as Pashinian and his political allies continued to push
for a sweeping reform of the national judiciary. Later in June, the parliament
elected two new members of the watchdog nominated by My Step.
Under the Armenian Judicial Code, the SJC must have 10 members. Half of them
are appointed by the parliament while the other half are chosen by the
country’s judges. As things stand now, the parliament can pick one more member
of the body, with the remaining three seats reserved for the judges.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” claims that Armenia’s Constitutional Court has effectively stopped
functioning after being declared illegitimate by its newest judge, Vahe
Grigorian. The paper says that this has not paralyzed the national judicial
system.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” accuses opposition forces of “exploiting” the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue in their criticism of the government. “They claim that
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities has been lowered and equated to
the status of Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community, that Artsakh’s
military-political leadership is pressured to cede lands [to Azerbaijan] and so
on,” writes the pro-government paper. It dismisses such claims as baseless,
pointing to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s repeated assurances that no peace
deal with Azerbaijan can be accepted without the approval of Karabakh’s people
and leadership. “As always, while rejecting the position of the current
Armenian authorities, Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian do not come up with
an alternative or clarify their own positions,” it says.
Lragir.am says that Eduard Sharmazanov, the spokesman for Sarkisian’s
Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), keeps challenging Pashinian to name “foreign
agents” which the latter says operate in the Armenian political scene. “It’s a
serious issue and Sharmazanov’s concerns are legitimate,” comments the
pro-Western online publication. “It must be pointed out that he is the only
person consistently raising that issue. Only Pashinian knows what and whom he
meant.” It says that Sharmazanov should, for his part, explain why he and his
HHK colleagues had voted for gas deals with Russia which “limited Armenia’s
sovereignty.”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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