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The Member of the RA NA Delegation to OSCE PA Maria Karapetyan gave a speech at the OSCE PA International Conference on Combating Corruption Defending Democracy: The Role of National Parliaments held in Nicosia.

In her speech she particularly noted: “Dear colleagues, I join the expressions of gratitude to the House of Representatives of Cyprus and personally Irene Charalambides for hosting us here. Thank you very much.

My colleague, Sargis Khandanyan spoke about the general progress made by Armenia in combating corruption. Transparency International says Armenia is a champion in terms of progress in recent years. This of course says something bad about our starting point a few years ago, but it also definitely says something good about the determination of Armenia's current political leadership in combating corruption. I would like to single out one particular legislative change that we have made in spring 2020. Two years ago, our parliament adopted a law on the civil forfeiture of illegal assets and currently there are about three hundred cases under study, under investigation and out of these three hundred about a dozen have entered the court.

Cumulatively, these dozen cases amount to 125 million Euros worth of potentially illegal assets. This is of course impressive for the Armenian public, but the important point in the adoption and implementation of this legislation is not so much the mechanism itself, as much as the opportunity it gives to the party that is accused of illegal assets to actually negotiate with the state and return these illegal assets on a voluntary basis hence also acquiring a chance to keep up to 25% of the amount that is being contested in court.

In general, this legislation is not a criminal legislation but a civil proceeding which contributes to this process speeding up, because it is not a conviction, a sentence that people face, but a civil proceeding.

In the political component of our discussion, Irene talked about political will as being the most important component in combating corruption. I share this position, and I think we all should aim towards making sure that in fact there is less and less of political will needed in combating corruption and more and more there are institutional capabilities and mechanisms that can take the place of our individual political will and make more permanent changes on our way to combating corruption,” the deputy concluded.