“An MP cannot do business, occupy positions in state or local government bodies and trade organizations, do other paid job, besides scientific, pedagogical and artistic work. MP does his/her duties on permanent basis.
The status and guarantees of activities of MP are established by the Constitution.”
This of the 65th article of the RA Constitution. This is the article that every day is being violated by the MPs of the nation. Meantime, it is violated so often and openly that has become a normal thing and not only MPs, but also journalists do not pay attention to it anymore.
For example, the state committee on protection of competition applied penalty on Lusakert poultry production company, and journalists applied to the owner of this company MP Khachik Manukyan to comment on the matter. In addition, the MP says that he does not agree with that decision. And the society started discussing how true was the decision of the committee or the opinion of Manukyan in this matter. A question originates: why do journalists ask the MP to comment on the situation with that business and why does the MP answer these questions if MPs cannot do business?
We can bring more examples, but the problem will not change. Hardly anybody from our society can name at least 20 MPs who do not have businesses and do not manage those businesses.
In an ordinary country where Constitution and laws are not violated, Manukyan Kh. and others would say “We do not deal with questions concerning friendship, please address to the director”. It’s more likely they are not aware of the details of the issue. Moreover, in a normal country it would not occur to the journalists to ask such a question to the MPs. The problem however is not in the above mentioned deputies-businessmen; everybody can understand that deputies’ mandate is simply a guarantee for property protection. What concerns speaking frankly and answering the journalists’ questions, it is more than obvious that not answering the questions would be regarded much worse by the journalists. The problem is in the system which allows all this to happen. They seem to want to change the situation. A draft on “Public service” was submitted to the National Assembly. The minister of Justice Hrayr Tovmasyan stated to “Haylur” some 2 days ago that the law is the mechanism which will allow providing the implementation of the mentioned term of the Constitution. Of course, during the latest NA session the draft was not approved because of the lack of quorum, however the minister is sure that this is simply a technical problem, which will soon be solved. What is the law about? The above mentioned term of the Constitution is put in details in the law (not only for the deputies but for the public workers as well). Particularly, the 24th article makes clear which kind of activity is considered as entrepreneurship. “In the context of this law entrepreneurship is considered the following: 1) the fact of being a sole proprietor, 2) participant of a trade organization despite the cases when the whole management of the trade organization is entrusted to accredited management, 3) holding a post in a trade organization, holding a position of a property manager within the trade organization or some kind of involvement in the management of the trade organization.” Especially the last paragraph, “some kind of involvement in the management of the trade organization” means that the statesman cannot in a formal aspect have no linkage to the business but in fact do business. When the MP makes a public statement about its private business, gives assessment about the business that belongs to him or dictates how it should be managed it means that he is in charge of the business. But what will happen after the adoption of the law when the businessmen will be pointed out when speaking about their business plans. And this is not all. Tovmasyan was assuring that the bill has an anti-corruption meaning. The first justification of the minister was that publication of the statesmen and high-level officials should be done periodically. The to be established committee ethics should be in charge of keeping track on the process, analyzing the results and ensuring the publication of tax statements. And the society will follow whether the personal incomes of the officials have grown more than the society’s and thus determine whether corruption took place or not. But the mechanism of publication of incomes has been invested in Armenia long ago and the experience shows that there is no use from that. However the law has another genius provision. It relates to the gifts accepted by public servants. In many European countries, as it’s known, there are many limitations to gifts. For example, in England, if I am not mistaken for a long time there was a law bribe was considered any gift, which could be even used or eaten with 24 hours. Our authorities have decided to create a similar provision in regard to gifts. Let us present this provision of the bill in full. It is a little long but it’s worth reading. Article 29 reads, “The public servant or the high-profile statesman shouldn’t accept or even give his consent to accept any gift, which will be related to the realization of his duties.” Then they clarify what they mean by the word “gift.” “The current law implies that gift is any type of property privilege, which wouldn’t be provided for free to an average citizen rather than a high-profile official. It also implies the limitless use of the property of others.” However there are exceptions, in the case of which gifts are allowed. The limitation doesn’t stretch to the duties defined by law, to the books provided by working purposes free of charge, official receptions and computer software. This also includes gifts provided to the family of the statesman, by which the statesman cannot personally have any benefit from or won’t provide service because of the attained gift. But even in the case of allowable gifts there are certain limitations. “If the gifts within the calendar year exceeded the value of 50,000 AMD from the same person or if the gifts within a year are more than 250,000 AMD worth then the public serviceman should within short period of time inform about that to his superior or the substitute or the ethics committee of the superior. And if the statesman receives a gift, which is not allowed and cannot return it to the one, who offered it, then he should inform about that the government and the gift should become the property of the republic of Armenia.” This is said pretty well. This makes you imagine how a statesman, who’d receive a watch worth of thousands of dollars would run to his superior to pass it to the Republic of Armenia. Can you imagine the high level of morality to do anything like that? So the only thing left to do is find and hire moral statesmen. If we currently don’t have such then we will have soon because the same law defines the code of ethics of statesmen. The code of ethics of a serviceman and the public servant are the following, “a) respect the law and obey the law, b) respect the moral norms of the public, c) when implementing his duties do not guide by the personal interests of others, d) by his activity the statesmen should conduce to formation of respect to the body he represents and himself, e) at all the occasions and everywhere manifest a behavior relevant to the official…” and so on. Is it clear now? It turns out that the law can make the person moral and we are complaining after all.