The whistle-blowing institute operates in Armenia. This means that people who have information about 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, and report about it.

Reporting alleged crimes and violations is not “snitching”. This is a legal process. 

Considering the national mentality, people often have a negative opinion about this phenomenon. We have already mentioned that there were even cases when a deputy of the National Assembly expressed a similar opinion during the discussions on making any changes at the legislative level, stating that “the institute of the whistleblower is not suitable for us Armenians” and no snitching should be performed.

In a conversation with  Iravaban.net, Mr. Karen Zadoyan, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, who is also a member of the Anti-Corruption Policy Council, opposes the above mentiond MP’s thesis. “Whistleblowers 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 the society should support them”, Karen Zadoyan said.

The Law of the Republic of Armenia “On the Whistle-Blowing System” also defines the duties of the whistleblower to act in good faith, as well as the cases where the whistleblower acts in bad faith.

The whistleblower acts in good faith, if at the time of reporting he has reasonable grounds for suspicion of a corruption case or conflict of interest or rules of ethics or incompatibility requirements or other restrictions or a violation related to the declaration or other damage to public interests or a threat thereof, and he is convinced that the information is true, and if he has taken steps to the best of his reasonable ability to verify the accuracy and completeness of the information prior to its disclosure.

You can report through the azdararir.am platform, both openly and anonymously.

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.