An Interview with Amalia Kostanyan, the President of the Center for Regional Development/Transparency International

-Where does the country rank in corruption according to the calculations of Transparency International? How do you explain this position?

Over the last three years there have been no positive changes. We are again in that group of countries where corruption is widespread. According to the results of our 2006 survey, 67.7% of those surveyed are confident that we have always had corruption and 33.5% answered that over the last three years corruption inArmeniahas significantly increased. The people surveyed believed that first of all this is facilitated by government workers. They consider the most corrupt systems to be in healthcare, education, elections, tax and customs systems, etc. According to our ratings, there have been no positive shifts because the structures created in 2004, such as the Anti-Corruption Council and the Monitoring Commission have been unproductive. More than 50% of those surveyed didn't even know about the existence of these structures and 84.3% did not know of the international obligations undertaken byArmenia. And finally 40.7% believed that inArmeniathe fight against corruption is completely ineffective, though 58.8% admitted that they themselves were doing absolutely nothing to resist manifested corruption.

As far as the anticorruption policies inArmeniaare concerned, unfortunately they were guided only at changing legislation and sublegislation acts. That is the weakness of our anti-corruption policies because international practice shows that the fight against corruption is only effective when work is done in three directions. These include raising the awareness of the population and educational programs, uncovering cases of corruption and punishing those guilty and also means of preventative character, such as the betterment of legislation. Of course we have cases where government employees, mainly of low or medium rank, are punished under articles regarding corruption. However despite the abundant presence of incriminating reports about high-ranking officials published in Armenian mass media, during all these years there has not been one case where a prominent politician or a major businessman has been convicted.

Any fight must have not only a governmental program but also the support of the population, since we are all spinning in this circle of corruption. But the people have no trust, no sense of protection, when it comes to acting as witnesses in cases of corruption. Fighting merely by coming up with new laws is impossible. In the new laws, much is consistent with international standards and of course there is much that still needs to be worked out; however in general the laws are not bad. But it is long overdue that we change over to more concrete actions. Firstly, we must ensure the implementation of laws, and secondly ensure justice, so people are not afraid to testify about cases of corruption-related crimes.

Often citizens themselves aid the development of corruption. They are late, provide insufficient documents for something and thus they go for a transgression. There is “corruption by the law” and “corruption against the law.” The first suggests corruption where people give or receive a bribe in order to receive or provide a service that is available by law for free or for a certain official price. By rule, this type of corruption is of administrative nature. The latter type of corruption is connected with grander schemes and usually politicians and large businessmen are involved, while common citizens usually do not encounter it. Here corruption is pronounced not only in money, and since the stakes are much higher we could be talking about political positions, economic monopolies, deputy chairs. We only punish, to a very insignificant degree, for administrative bribery, but we don't even come close to punishments for larger violations. With all the improvements in legislation and institutional reform, there are still pathways for overstepping of positions, for corruption, which by the way, is now implemented in a more skilled way than before. It is not easy to grab them by the hand, especially since both sides of the crime don't want to be involved in criminal investigations.

For example, during the May 12 voting (parliamentary elections in Armenia), in the pre-election period and even long before that, people were calling us and reporting that on the streets, in government establishments, in residential buildings bribes were being given out, but when we asked them to be witnesses, they all outright refused. According to our 2003 survey, more individuals (75%) admitted that they were offered bribes; this year there were more bribes, but people began to conceal this. In 2007 there were other instances of corruption – overstepping of administrating resources, bribery under the disguise of charity, exceeding of the 60 Million AMD allowed for the pre-election campaign, etc. At the same time, the atmosphere of fear is hurting the fight against corruption-related crimes, i.e. when the witness is unsure whether, after testifying, the candidate for deputy or he himself will be punished. And since we have no real political will to fight corruption, this atmosphere of fear is useful to those who profit from the advancement of corruption and lawlessness in our country.

-In 2001, upon inclusion into the Council of Europe, Armenia took upon itself certain obligations regarding the elimination of corruption. How well are these obligations being fulfilled? Who needs this struggle more, the European structures or our country?

The international conventions for which we have signed up focus their attention on legislation and in that sense we have certain positive changes. Our legislation has many imperfections and there are sublegislative acts that do not always correspond with the legislation; sometimes this is done to make it easier to interpret the law the way one wants. But even with their imperfections, our laws can work if people start implementing them.

Unfortunately, our international obligations do not include conditions on implementation of laws or monitoring of implementation. Every year the government offers reports to the international community about new laws, changes to existing laws, etc. but that by itself is half, even a quarter of the issue. It must also be said that monitoring the completion of international obligations is done completely ineffectively, on a very low level, and that by itself contributes to the imitation of the fight against corruption. According to the reports, everything is remarkable: laws are enacted, sublegislation is enacted, but in reality nothing is changing.

Prior to the recent elections the government came out saying that a new stage in the battle against corruption is beginning, and that it is now time to shift to more determined actions. However during the elections, we not only did not see proofs of this determination, but the situation was quite the opposite. I highly doubt that the new government formed as a result of these “corrupt” elections will realize the problems and dangers of corruption and finally begin to fight it.

As far as the “who needs this struggle more” question is concerned, there is no doubt that we must need it more. Of course, the European community prefers to live and build relations with civilized governments that find order, laws, and the respect for European principles important. From this perspective their interest in the eradication of these problems is evident. But we, for example, are doing this (or rather, showing that we are doing something) in order to enterEurope, receive loans, financial or other types of assistance. All this is currently done for show, for others – the Europeans. This unauthentic performance will not impress anyone for long, if it not followed by concrete actions – if there will not be proof of a desire to at least reduce the level of corruption inArmenia. Currently, neither the common people, nor the government officials have the awareness that we must most importantly do all this for ourselves. We do not yet see any evident proofs of a genuine political will to fight corruption.

-Where does corruption rank in the obstacles to the development of the economy? How much does it inhibit investments? What does corruption obstruct the most?

Certainly we have investors that have come into agreement with corrupt authorities, have monopolized certain spheres of the economy and are sharing their profits with politicians. Money laundering also has its place here. At the same time, there would be much more investment, if the level of widespread corruption was not so high. No external investor will want to invest or find room for investment. If the economy is divided between monopolies and oligopolies, then it is very difficult to develop business with honest means. The less corruption there is the more investment and the more competition there is on the market.

Corruption hurts the political, economic and social development of the country. In addition, it negative impacts the morale of the society. The scariest thing is that children, almost from infant age, see that everything can be bought and sold, and that everything is measured in money. In such a society substantial political and economic reforms cannot take place. We do not have sufficiently developed institutions – civil society, judicial system, mass media, etc and all this leads to the development of corruption here. At the same time the presence of corruption negatively influences the formulation of the democratic institutions that would help prevent corruption. Thus, we are stuck in vicious circle that can be torn apart only by a genuine desire by the entire society (top-down as well as bottom-up) to find a way out of this circle.

-What initial steps have to be taken to reduce this occurrence? Can there be universal prescriptions for the fight against corruption.

Internationally there have been cases that show very corrupt governments undertaking a sober approach, understanding what negative consequences the blossoming of corruption can have; these governments began cleansing from the inside. For example,Singaporeand Hong-Kong not only began to enact new laws, but also punished violators. I think that any population will believe in and support anti-corruption reforms, if it sees evidence of determination of its government to undertake such reforms. There is no universal panacea. And we cannot copy the experiences of others, since that is bound to bring disappointment. But there is universal corruption, approaches to solving similar problems, and those are the ones we can rely one. These are the preventative, punitive and educational means, to be undertaken in parallel with each other, which I talked about earlier.

Our organization, for example, wants to focus more attention on specific court examinations. We want to force the judicial system to work and/or to show, with specific examples, what in the system does not work. It is not necessary to throw everyone in jail, it will be enough that one corrupt official be sent to prison, another one loses his job, the ability to progress his career, and receives a reprimand from society. Corruption needs to not only be dangerous, but shameful. There are many anti-corruption programs that organize seminars on corruption, undertake investigations, print books and produce recommendations. But that is not sufficient, if there are no specific cases of corruption and specific people being punished.