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At the Plenary Sitting of PACE Spring Session, the member of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Arusyak Julhakyan spoke about the need of combating corruption, the importance of the return of illegal assets within that framework and the reforms made in Armenia in that direction.

“Dear colleagues,

One of the tools for combating corruption and organized crime is the confiscation of illicit profits and other criminal assets.

But why is it important to fight corruption and kleptocracy? It’s crucial, as in my belief corruption is a national security threat. It undermines democracy, hollows out the rule of law having an impact on law enforcement bodies and judicial systems, affects the state’s effectiveness, affects the economic environment creating and strengthening a shadow economy, deteriorates the investment climate in the country, and ultimately it can bring to the loss of national sovereignty. Corruption also fuels the rise of authoritarian leaders who seek to exploit social divisions, who use public office for personal gain by these undermining democracies worldwide.

Corrupt leaders cling to power through patronage networks and exploit rule-of-law jurisdictions to conceal and protect their stolen assets. These leaders are also accustomed to using strategic corruption as a tool of foreign policy. In my point of view transparency of assets would enable the world to combat kleptocracy breaking the pathway - steal, obscure, spend. After the Armenian peaceful revolution of 2018 among other reforms in the field of combating corruption, the Armenian Government also addressed the mentioned issue. Starting from February 2020 the companies operating in Armenia have an obligation to submit a declaration about real owners and beneficiaries․ An open register was created for real owners and beneficiaries of legal persons, which makes them transparent for the public.

As regards the confiscation of the illicit assets, in 2020 the Armenian Parliament adopted a law on Confiscation of property of illicit origin, which envisages a non-conviction based confiscation. It may help not only recover the stolen assets within Armenia and beyond, but also apply the regulations regarding the cases of organized crime, money laundering, trafficking, etc. During the development and adoption of this Law the experience of some countries of the Council of Europe in the sphere was considered.

Based on this Law, a special division in the Office of the Prosecutor General was created and now we can already see the regulations in action. The first cases involving illicit assets of former high-ranking officials have been already sent to the Armenian courts and, and we are now expecting the first results of the confiscation process. This means that it’s time to think how and for what we are going to use the confiscated illicit assets.

From this perspective the resolution and the respective recommendation on “How to Put Confiscated Criminal Assets to Good Use?” will be extremely important and useful for us.

And to conclude, dear colleagues, let me state that it is important to understand how we can join our efforts to combat organized crime, including money laundering, which will in its turn help us strengthen and protect the democratic institutions. We know that the democracies, democratic systems are very frequently targeted using the laundered money itself. So it is important to understand what can be done by the democracies to protect themselves and each other.” Arusyak Julhakyan concluded.