Hearings on the “Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia” are being held in the National Assembly.

Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan, Anti-Corruption Expert of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, advocate in her speech noted that the Draft Law on Corruption Prevention Committee had also been introduced in the scope of the package under discussion. According to which the President of the National Assembly shall establish a Competition board for the election of the member of the Corruption Prevention Commission, except for the cases when the members of the first composition of the Commission are appointed.

According to Susanna Soghomonyan, it is welcomed that the ruling political authority heeded the proposals of professional civil society and international organizations.

“It is unfortunate that this same regulation has not been adopted from the very initial stage of the Commission’s regulation, and the current Corruption Prevention Commission has been formed solely as a result of a political arrangement without securing its institutional independence. Whereas the Commission is a specialized structure, and its appointments should be exclusively in the professional domain, and not the political,” Susanna Soghomonyan said.

According to her, the formation of the first composition of the Commission is highly vulnerable through non-competitive, political arrangements, as well as the failure to check the integrity of all members of the Commission by the National Assembly raises a legitimate doubt about the most important issue of checking the integrity of others currently reserved to the Commission.

“The negative consequences of the political appointments of the members of the commission are already present, which we have witnessed quite recently, which was the resignation of a member of the Commission nominated by the “My Step” during the first session of the Commission, as well as GRECO’s assessment of the political process of forming the Commission.”

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