GRECO urges Armenian authorities to ensure anti-corruption panel’s independent functioning

The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has addressed the situation in Armenia in a recently published report, highlighting problematic points dealing with the parliament-approved law on the creation of an anti-corrption body and the functioning of the subsequently launched commission.

The Fourth Round Evaluation Report, adopted at GRECO’s 69th Plenary Meeting (16 October 2015) and made public on 25 February 2016 (following authorisation by Armenia) addressed 18 recommendations to the country. The organization concluded that several recommendations had been dealt with in a satisfactory manner while others had not been implemented at all.

GRECO recommended that the transparency of the legislative process in the National Assembly be secured and further improved 

      (i) by ensuring that the requirement to carry out public discussions on draft laws is respected in practice and that drafts submitted to the National Assembly as well as amendments are disclosed in a timely manner, and 

      (ii) by taking appropriate measures to ensure disclosure of information on the content of and participants in committee sittings, as well as more active use by committees of the possibility to organise parliamentary hearings.

It was recalled that the recommendation was partly implemented in the Compliance Report. GRECO noted a number of improvements in legislation and regulation to provide for more transparency of the legislative process, such as the obligation to make public draft legislation on the newly established website “e-draft.am” and the publication of draft laws registered in Parliament on the parliamentary website, with the possibilities of any interested body to comment on such draft laws.

GRECO also noted that the Constitutional Law on Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly (LRoP) improved the regulation on standing committee sittings and increased the possibility to initiate parliamentary hearings. The authorities indicated that the use of closed doors in respect of committee meetings had decreased. However, GRECO 3 noted that the revised legal framework was new and the actual practices needed to be re-assessed once the system had been operational for some time.

The full report can be accessed here