The price of Artur Davtyan's rewards

Vardges Sargsyan

Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan was elected by the authorites of the ″old″ Republic of Armenia - the one whose National Assembly had likewise elected Hrayr Tovmasyan, the president of the Constitutional Court. Yet, along with ″probing″ for cases against the high court's president – elected by the same Armenia and virtually also the same National Assembly - the prosecutor general in ″new Armenia″ was awarded twice in the past three and a half months alone. Based upon the prime minister's proposal, Davtyan was granted the rank of a third-class justice advisor on July 5, the day of Armenia's Constitution.

And yesterday, three and a half months later, the president signed a decree, upon the prime minister's proposal, on honoring Davtyan as a second-class justice advisor.

A question arises as to what Artur Davtyan has done over the period to deserve a promotion twice. Artur Davtyan, as the authorities are prone to characterizing, is the prosecutor [general] of ″old Armenia″. In April 2018, he himself appealed to the National Assembly led by Ara Babloyan to strip Nikol Pashinyan, then a member of parliament and and an opposition leader, of his mandate ND initiate a prosecution.

When Pashinyan was elected a prime minsiter, everybody was awaiting the resignation of Artur Davtyan, a central figure [in the former government]. Yet, Davtyan not only escaped the scenario of stepping down then, but also remains in office now. With two of Pashinyan's proxies having been appointed and already sacked, Davtyan still continues receiving honors,

In his July 1 speech dedicated to the 101^st anniversary of the Prosecutor General's Office, Nikol Pashinyan said, ″The Prosecutor General's Office demonstrated, over the past year, that it does belong to new Armenia.″ Four days later, Davtyan was awarded along with other heads of law enforcement agencies.    

It is in connection with the ″March 1″ case that Davtyan earned the award, as well as the title to be the prosecutor of ″New Armenia″. Otherwise, the law enforcers would have found ″godsons″ appointed during his tenure [to fabricate criminal cases against]. But they no longer search for those people to accuse them of at least ″inaction″ during the March 1 [turmoil].

Aliens have no place in "new Armenia", with the heads of independent bodies being summoned to the National Security Service for interrogation. But what has Artur Davtyan done in the past three months to earn the rank of a second-class justice advisor? He did away with the decision disallowing a criminal case against judge David Grigoryan and moved instead to institute a new proceeding. All the judges have come to realize that in order to avoid prosecution, they must not replace Robert Kocharyan's arrest with another measure of restraint ...

 Whereas a prosecutor can be granted promotion only twice annually.