The meeting of the Anti-Corruption Council with participation of the representatives of civil society took place. Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan chaired the meeting.
The first issue of the agenda referred to curbing administrative corruption in the sphere of public services. The rapporteur Karen Zadoyan, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association proposed to restart the Anti-Corruption centers in Armenia. He noted that in the period of 2011-2014 such centers had been operating in the republic with USAID assistance. It is expected 
the operation of the centers would prevent corruption on the administrative level. Mr. Zadoyan noted that the anti-corruption centers should adopt a three-dimensional approach: provide legal support to the victims of corruption; implement monitoring of procedures and the legal acts and submit proposals for reforms; raise public awareness. Mr. Zadoyan said that the practice had shown that that centers were effective model of the fight against corruption and there are many successful examples. In the period of 2011-2014, more than 17 thousand beneficiaries addressed to the centers with complaints on administrative corruption. The number of cases including corruption risks was over two thousand. It is anticipated to implement the project with co-financing of the government and donor organizations.
Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan attached importance to the involvement of civil society in the fight against corruption, ensuring feedback and increase public control. Karen Karapetyan instructed Davit Harutyunyan, Minister-Chief of Government to initiate a discussion around the idea with the relevant departments.
Karen Zadoyan spoke about the issue of the protection of whistleblowers rights. He mentioned that there are two approaches in this direction. First, the whistleblowers rights are protected under the effective law providing security guarantees; and the second: it is proposed to establish an electronic platform through which it will be able to receive anonymous complaints.:
With regard to the second approach, the international experience has been studied and currently legislative drafts, which are directed at ensuring the whistleblowers security, are being developed. It was also proposed to consider the possibility of providing incentives to whistleblowers who report the crimes.
The RA Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan noted that currently the discussions of the mentioned above two models are under discussion based on the recommendation of the creation of certified electronic platform on the basis of anonymous reporting ideology. In addition, it is foreseen to establish the possibility of giving a return question on the reported corruption issue to the anonymous person at the same time ensuring the principle of anonymity. The Minister stressed that the draft will be presented to a large-scale discussion.
“The role of whistleblowers on corruption occurrences in preventing and detecting corruption is very important,” the Prime Minister said and instructed Davit Harutyunyan, Minister-Chief of Government to initiate steps aimed at the introduction of the mechanisms for whistleblowers protection and ensuring technical support for the anonymous electronic platform, including presenting the “Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers” to the Government as soon as possible.
Sona Ayvazyan, Executive Director of “Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center” spoke about the matters of conflict of interest and declaration of incomes and property that exists in the public service sector. The issues concerning the definition of the term conflict of interest, expansion of the list of officials that must submit declaration on property and income to the, legislative regulations, activities of the agencies supervising the conflict of interest, existing gaps in that direction, etc. Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan noted that the solutions are being developed or the legislative packages that provide solution of the existing gaps and problems are already in circulation. The main changes would be presented soon.
“It is clear that both from the legislative and the practical point of view, there are many gaps in these areas. For that reason, I am instructing the Minister of Justice, to develop and submit a legislative package on regulation of conflict of interest of the public servants and the expansion of the list of officials that must submit declaration on property and income,” Karen Karapetyan said.
Then Karen Zadoyan introduced to the attention of the Council recommendations related to anti-corruption system reforms in business sector. The recommendations are related to the introduction of the institute Business Ombudsman, conduct investigations with respect to the offending officials that conduct activities related with business sector, applying accountability measures, conducting research of the public servants’ activities while developing policies for targeted areas of business, developing objective indicators for measuring the results of the work established by law for the public servants and introduction of the wage bonus system based on its results, the submission of declarations of tax and customs employees, etc.
“We attach high importance to the creation of equal, fair and transparent framework in the business environment, and the presented proposals are important to us in that respect,” the Prime Minister stressed. Karen Karapetyan instructed the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Economic Development and Investments to discuss the mentioned proposals with the representatives of business sector and to propose solutions. The Prime Minister stressed the idea of introducing the institute of business ombudsman and the activities carried out in this direction.
Larisa Minasyan, Executive Director of Open Society Foundations-Armenia, speaking about the last issue of the agenda presented the results of the study “Strengthening Integrity and fighting Corruption in Education: Armenia” and noted that they had tried to identify all systemic issues in the education sector and to submit proposals for their solution. A discussion was held on the issues and proposals submitted.
The Prime Minister noted that a large package of reforms in the educational system, which will be presented in the ways for the solution of the existing problems is being prepared. “We have a lot of problems related with schools: excess of square meters for one pupil; poor communal-general conditions; excess of the number of teachers as compared with the number of pupils.” Karen Karapetyan instructed the Minister of Education and Science to examine the issues raised in the report, discuss them with stakeholders and submit proposals in the form of the priorities of the Ministry, measures and legislative reforms.
Iravaban net learned this from the RA Government Staff
