ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT MULLS NEW SECURITY AGENCY
By Ruzanna Khachatrian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Nov 2 2007

The Armenian parliament began debating on Friday a government
proposal to set up a new security agency that would be tasked with
investigating instances of government corruption and other abuses
committed by state officials.

Presenting a relevant draft law to the National Assembly, Justice
Minister Gevorg Danielian said the proposed Special Investigative
Service (SIS) would exclusively deal with crimes that have a "great
public resonance and "relate to the status of state officials." He
said it would also be supposed to combat electoral fraud.

Under the government bill, the head of the SIS would be nominated by
Armenia’s prosecutor-general and appointed by the president of the
republic. This provision prompted strong objections from opposition and
even some pro-government deputies. Those included David Harutiunian,
Danielian’s predecessor who now chairs the parliament committee on
legal affairs.

"In my opinion, the nomination by the prosecutor-general is
unacceptable," Harutiunian said during the debates. He said the SIS
chief should be nominated by the Armenian prime minister instead.

Harutiunian also rejected as unconstitutional some of his opposition
colleagues’ demands that the head of the new security service be
chosen by the parliament.

The parliamentary faction of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun), a junior partner in the governing coalition, also
voiced misgivings about the bill, requesting a separate meeting with
Danielian. Its leader, Hrayr Karapetian, said Dashnaktsutyun lawmakers
have "many question" regarding the bill.

Opposition lawmakers, for their part, were highly skeptical about
Danielian’s assurances that the SIS would be independent of all
branches of government and therefore better placed to tackle government
abuses than the existing law-enforcement bodies. "Can you really
imagine this supposedly independent security service equally dealing
with all cases and investigating crimes originating in the prosecutor’s
office or the presidential administration?" Raffi Hovannisian, the
leader of the opposition Zharangutyun Party, asked the minister.

Other opposition deputies expressed concern about the possibility of
a further restriction of civil liberties enjoyed by Armenians. Zaruhi
Postanjian, another Zharangutyun parliament, pointed to the passage
last month of a highly controversial government bill that allows
law-enforcement authorities to wire-tap phone conversations without
a court authorization. He also accused the authorities of planning
to create "networks of secret agents" for all law-enforcement and
tax agencies.

"Where will this path take us?" said Postanjian. "Do we want to
make our people even more scared and reduce Armenia’s population to
a minimum?"

The government wants the proposed law on the SIS to take effect
as early as on December 1, the day when Armenia’s Office of the
Prosecutor-General will formally lose its authority to conduct
pre-trial criminal investigation. Danielian insisted that the bill is
not aimed at mitigating the serious reduction in the law-enforcement
agency’s powers.