The CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia has issued a statement on the competition for the election of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. The statement in particular reads:

“By the 16 September decision of the RA Government, the former head of the Special Investigation Service Sasun Khachatryan was appointed to the post of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. The Governing Board of the CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia had expressed its concerns about the formality of the competition for the election of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee in a condemning statement dated 8 June.

Unfortunately, these fears were substantiated and confirmed by the fact that the Competition Board was veiled, with an incomplete staff, and did not involve specialized CSOs that were not affiliated with the government, as a result of which the Competition Board actually nominated the person preferred by the Government. Moreover, the Board, which according to the law should have consisted of seven members, made its decisions with a minimum composition of four members.

Also, it is obvious that the results of the evaluation of integrity check of the candidate are significant in the issue of appointment of the candidate for the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee. In general, the international experience in the fight against corruption and its prevention attaches great importance to the integrity of the person being appointed to the post, as it includes a framework for examining such key issues as adherence to criminal sub-culture, apolitical stance, and declaration of property, income and interests as well as their analysis.

Moreover, the latter also includes the property and income belonging to another person, but actually owned by the candidate. Thus, according to the assessment of the Coalition’s experts, despite the importance of the institute of integrity check, the passing threshold for the evaluation of a candidate’s integrity by the Competition Board has been set quite low, which allowed passing the candidate preferred by the Government without difficulty.

Another distressing circumstance is that during the interview phase, the candidate elected by the Competition Board for the position of Chairman of the Committee regularly has mentioned the property belonging to his close relative (sister’s husband) but actually owned by him, yet, unfortunately this information was not verified by the Commission for Prevention Corruption by requesting a situational declaration.

It should be reminded that before being appointed to this position, Sasun Khachatryan was a high-ranking official and from 11 June, 2018 to 16 September, 2021, he headed the Special Investigation Service. This is also mentioned in more detail in the framework of the investigation conducted by the independent news website Iravaban.net.

Thus, the CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia reaffirms its position expressed in its condemnatory statement on 8 June, 2021, which states that the competition for the election of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee was conducted under the guise of false democracy and transparency, and the election process and the elected candidate do not meet such important criteria set out in the Jakarta Statement on the Principles for Anti-Corruption Agencies as: impartiality, neutrality, integrity and competence, independence and political neutrality.”