Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan sums up the year.
She considers the reform in the probation service sphere which was discussed for a long time and finally became a reality as one of the most important achievements in the sphere in 2016. Probation came into action from September 1. According to the Minister the probation service would execute penalties that are not related with freedom, including the house arrest.
The second important step is the establishment of joint offices, very often the people had to visits several governmental bodies to receive one document, but currently it is different. Currently the citizens are provided an opportunity to receive the document from one operator The Minister also stressed that at present, citizens, who live in remote settlements are nit forced to come to Yerevan to recive the documents.
Another important step is the draft, which does not allow to put ban on the citizen’s house. The other is the settlement of notifications system. Sometimes citizens complain that they are informed about the administrative act when there is already a ban on their property. According to the Minister, the current system has changed, the citizen only make a call, perform some actions and register in the system, after which the person will get notifications. This system is already operational and tested in the system of the traffic police. Arpine Hovhannisyan also spoke about the activities carried out within the framework of the fight against corruption, the first achievement is criminalization of illicit enrichment. The law shall enter into force on 1 July, 2017.
According to the Minister the criminalization of illicit enrichment shall not act sufficiently if it works only in the framework of criminalization, therefore, changes are made to the Law on Public Service as well.
The possibility to make cash transactions that exceed the amount of 2 million AMD has been eliminated from the Law on Public service for the officials and their family members. There is a question: who will control this. The RA President signed an order for this purpose according to which a working group shall be established, which will develop an Institutional Anti-Corruption Body. This body should be developed and introduced in February 2017.
The Minister also highlighted the adoption of the NGO Law and mentioned that in addition to the MPs the Public sector agreed with this as well.
