On December 30, President Serzh Sargsyan signed a number of laws, among them the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, and the Law on making Addenda to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.
Under the first law, a new Article on Illegal Enrichment is added in the RA Criminal Code; and the second law reserved the Criminal proceedings on cases of the unlawfully enriched officials, for the Special Investigation Service.
Mr. Karen Zadoyan, the President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Coordinator of the Secretariat of CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia said that 
criminalisation of illicit enrichment was an important step not only for the NGO, but also for the society.
“The President signed the expected and important legislative package. We struggled for about 9 years, so that this most important anti-corruption mechanism would be adopted in the country – that is, illegal enrichment would be criminalized. Over the past three years, we carried out this struggle more intensively and in a more coordinated manner, many of the civil society organizations, in particular in the face of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenian. I especially emphasize the work that has been done over the past one year when we have had a constructive dialogue with the government of the country, including the Minister of Justice individually and the RA Ministry of Justice, as well as with the staff of the executive brunch coordinated by the Minister Chief of Government Staff. As a result of this cooperation, we were able to introduce our approaches, so the issue appeared on the political agenda and later we developed a joint legislative draft,” Karen Zadoyan said.
The draft was unanimously adopted by the National Assembly and there were no MPs against it. “What does this mean? This meant that the law was awaited and important, expresses public expectations. Currently the next important step is its application, which is entirely depends on the relevant authorities, which soon would be established and the Special Investigative Service, which will apply this law,”Mr. Zadoyan concluded.
