What is whistle-blowing?

Whistle-blowing is a written or oral reporting by a whistle-blower to an authorized person or body provided for by this Law of information regarding a case of corruption or a violation in respect of conflict of interests, or rules of ethics or incompatibility requirements, or other restrictions or declaration, or other harm to public interests or the threat thereof within state and local self-government bodies, state institutions and organizations, as well as within public organizations;

This is defined by the RA Law “On the System of Whistle-Blowing”.

Who is the whistle-blower?

Whistle-blower is a natural or legal person, who reports, in good faith and as provided for by this Law, information regarding a case of corruption or a violation in respect of conflict of interests, or rules of ethics or incompatibility requirements, or other restrictions or declaration, or other harm to public interests or the threat thereof related to the official or the body, with whom he or she is or was in employment or civil law, or administrative law relations, or to whom he or she has applied for the purpose of rendering services, or who has been mistakenly perceived as a whistle-blower. The person shall be considered to be mistakenly perceived as a whistle-blower, where he or she has been perceived, without whistle-blowing, as a whistle-blower by other persons, or against whom harmful actions have been applied;

What types of whistle-blowing are available?

Considering the national mentality, people often have a negative opinion about this phenomenon. There have even been cases when a member of the National Assembly expressed a similar opinion during the discussions on making any changes at the legislative level, stating that “the institution of the whistle-blower is not suitable for us Armenians” and it is not necessary “to snitch”.

In an interview with Iravaban.net, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, member of the Anti-Corruption Policy Council, Mr. Karen Zadoyan mentioned the importance of the whistle-blowing system.

“Whistle-blowers are people who report corruption cases, that is, they inform the law enforcement agencies and the public so that these problems are eliminated. They are not “snitchers”, they are decent and law abiding citizens. The state and society should support them,” Karen Zadoyan said.

You can also report anonymously.

There are several platforms for reporting citizens in Armenia.

⇒ The one of the main such tools the unified electronic notification platform, azdararir.am , operated by the RA Prosecutor General’s Office.

Through this platform, in accordance with the RA Law “On the System of Whistle-Blowing”, the whistle-blower can also anonymously report information about a corruption case. In case of submitting a report anonymously through the unified electronic platform, the anonymity of the person is guaranteed by the Law of the Republic of Armenia “On the System of Whistle-Blowing”.

Before submitting a report anonymously, it is necessary to encode the Internet Protocol Address of the device through which the person is going to report.

In this regard, it should be noted that anonymous reporting is considered one of the important guarantees of the whistle-blowers’ protection, as the latter ensures the confidence of whistle-blowers in the protection of their personal data, taking into account their anonymity both for third parties and for competent state authorities.

⇒ Another platform for whistle-blowing, especially for representatives of the business sector, is BizPashtpan, bizprotect.am.

On this platform, individuals have the right to submit applications regarding business issues that concern them, both openly and anonymously. The application provided by the citizen is fully encrypted. In addition, there are additional privacy safeguards in place when using the Tor Internet browser, in this case the IP address of the citizen’s computer will not be revealed, so no one will be able to find out your identity.

⇒ employeeprotect.am operates for the protection of workers’ rights . It is launched by the Health and labor Inspection body of the Republic of Armenia, and the was prepared by the Armenian Lawyers’ Association.

This publication was prepared within the framework of the program “Multifaceted Whistle-Blowing Promotion in Armenia”, implemented by the “Armenian Lawyers Association” (ALA) NGO with the support of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), funded by the European Union (EU) within the framework of the “EU for Good, Eastern Partnership” project.

This publication expresses the position of the author, the ALA, which does not necessarily coincide with the position of the OGP and the EU.