In 2020, some members of the executive were relived from the post. In particular:  Zohrab Mnatsakanyan was relieved from the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Feliks Tsolakyan from the post of the Minister of Emergency Situations, Davit Tonoyan, from the post of the Minister of defense, Zaruhi Batoyan, from the post of the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arayik Harutyunyan, from the post of the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, Tigran Khachatryan, from the post of the Minister of Economy.

It should be noted that Article 34 of the Law on Public Service defines the obligation to declare the property, income and interests of declaring officials. Point 4 of the article states that Declarant officials shall submit declarations upon assumption and termination of their official duties, as well as annual declarations.

According to point 6, declarant official’s declarations upon assumption or termination of his or her official duties shall be submitted as of the day of assumption or termination of his or her official duties.

Article 36 of the same law defines the terms of declaration, according to which:

1. Declarant officials shall submit the declarations upon assumption or termination of official duties to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption within a period of 30 days following the day of assumption or termination of their official duties. The aforementioned persons shall, during their term of office, submit annual declarations by 31 March of the year following a given year.
2. Where a declarant official has, within 30 days following the automatic or imposed termination of his or her powers, been appointed (elected) to a position requiring declaration under this Law, he or she shall not submit a declaration upon termination or assumption of his or her official duties. This provision shall not be applicable where the declarant official has never submitted a declaration of assumption of official duties under this Law. In this case the declarant official shall submit a declaration upon assumption of official duties.
3. Where after submitting a declaration upon termination of his or her official duties a declarant official has – by 31 December of a given year — been appointed (elected) to a position requiring declaration under this Law, he or she shall not submit a declaration upon assumption of his or her official duties.

It should be noted that Feliks Tsolakyan , one of the mentioned resigned ministers, has submitted a declaration. It was presented on 1 December, 2020.

Arayik Harutyunyan, who was relieved of the post of Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport in accordance with the 23 November decree of the President of the Republic of Armenia, did not submit his resignation, but it should be noted that he was appointed Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister by the decision of the Prime Minister on 24 November. According to the law, an official is appointed (elected) to a position in accordance with this law within 30 days after the termination (termination) of his/her powers, then he/she does not submit a declaration of termination or assumption of official duties.

In other words, Arayik Harutyunyan has no obligation to submit a declaration upon termination; he must submit only an annual declaration.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan was dismissed according to the November 16 decree of the RA President, Zaruhi Batoyan, David Tonoyan according to the decree of 20 November, and Tigran Khachatryan according to the decree of 26 November. After that, no announcement was made about their appointment in any structure.

Article 36 of the Law on Public Service (Time limits for declaration and amending a declaration) has been violated.

It should be noted that the Corruption Prevention Commission issued a statement on 11 November on the submission of declarations, which stated:

In particular, the Corruption Prevention Commission’s (CPC) reporting system for filling out declarations, correcting the data contained in the declaration, and other declarative-related actions is available only from the territory of state bodies, from computers connected to the IP address of the public service body.

Taking into account such restrictions, the Commission informs:

1. The Commission will not impose liability on all declarants (including official family members) who do not have access to computers connected to the public service network and cannot complete declarations.
2. All the declarants who use the computers connected to the service network of the state bodies are obliged to submit the relevant declarations within the terms defined by law. Please contact the Commission for guidance on specific issues.

Already on 14 January, 2021, the CPC issued a new statement, which reads:

“As we reported earlier, in the conditions of the martial law declared on 27 September, 2020, the access to the electronic reporting system of the Corruption Prevention Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) was limited. Those declarants who, for the above-mentioned objective reasons, have not been able to fulfill the declaration obligation, can submit the declaration of assumption or termination of the position within one month after ensuring the availability of the system. In case of fulfillment of the obligation to declare within the mentioned period, no sanctions will be applied to them. Once the system is restarted, the Commission will issue a statement to that effect, informing all departments.

At present, as part of the work on the complete restart of the system, measures are being taken to verify the declarants’ mobile phone numbers and other personal data, as well as family composition, through government agencies. In order to ensure the access of the declarants to the electronic declaration system for filling in the annual declarations for 2020, the Commission will implement the notifications by sending a short message (SMS) to the mobile phone numbers. Only after receiving the message will it be possible to log in to the electronic declaration system to activate individual accounts, so there is no need to log in to the system before receiving the message. 

Corresponding telephone notifications will be sent to mobile phone numbers after 18 January, 2021.

Notably, the deadline for declarants, who have obligation to submit annual declarations for 2020 is 31 May 2021, but due to the high workload expected in the last months of the declaration, the Commission recommends starting the declaration process as soon as the mobile message is received, so that the Commission is able to properly support the declarants within its resources.”

The statement of the commission mentions only the annual declarations, but nothing is said about the declarations upon termination.

Iravaban.net tried to find out whether the above-mentioned persons had tried to submit the declarations to the Commission or not, or whether they submitted them, but it was not  published due to technical problems, received an almost identical reply from the Commission, which was already published on the official website. We present the reply below: