Justice and Anti-corruption Reforms

The Democracy Development Foundation is engaged in the promotion of impactful reforms in the areas of justice and anti-corruption through active advocacy and public oversight of such reforms.

By collaborating with a range of diverse civil society organizations, state institutions, international organizations, experts, and the public in general, DDF pushes for the enactment of anti-corruption legislation, judicial reforms, and transparency measures. The end-goal of these efforts is to develop and implement reforms that fortify the rule of law in Armenia and ensure access to justice for all citizens.

In 2023 we implemented the following activities:

We presented recommendations on the draft legislation packages initiated by the Supreme Judicial Council for alleviating the workload of courts and improving their efficiency. With our assistance, the NGO “Protection of Rights without Borders” conducted monitoring of judge selection and disciplinary proceedings in 2022 and 2023, uncovering significant issues. Based on the monitoring report, reform proposals were elaborated and presented to the decision makers.

Recommendations on the topic of transitional justice were presented in respect of the draft Law on the Creation of a Fact-Finding Commission, which was elaborated by the Ministry of Justice. We brought on board experts from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) with a view to sharing the international best practices with the decision makers.

Justice Ministry, Supreme Judicial Council, General Prosecutor’s Office, Anti-Corruption Committee, Corruption Prevention Commission representatives, judges, civil society actors, and investigative journalists benefited from experience sharing visits to Slovakia and Albania.  They examined these countries’ experiences with vetting processes, the independence of anti-corruption bodies, and the unique operational characteristics, aiming to enhance legislation and practices in Armenia.

A group of prosecutors, Corruption Prevention Commission staff, and investigative journalists took part in the Open-Source Intelligence Gathering course organized by DDF that aimed to support the development of capacity to discover ill-gotten assets.

The Democracy Development Foundation, jointly with the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, the NGO “Protection of Rights without Borders”, and the Law Development and Protection Foundation, presented dozens of recommendations on the development of a new Anti-Corruption Reform Strategy.  The majority of the recommendations were integrated into strategic documents and served as the foundation for drafting a joint report by NGOs on Armenia’s adherence to international anti-corruption obligations, which was submitted to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

With support to the Investigative Journalists NGO, important investigations were carried out with a view to exposing corruption risks, conflicts of interests, procurement abuses, and other violations. In 2023 “Hetq” published 34 investigative materials, based on which 20 proceedings were initiated by various structures of the law enforcement bodies. Certain proceedings have concluded with administrative fines imposed on several officials, while others remain ongoing. Additionally, criminal cases have been initiated based on certain investigative materials.

The Foundation continued to bring together the Government and the civil society organizations to discuss the priorities and challenges of the Public Administration Reforms.  Several proposals were presented, and discussions were held regarding the potential engagement of civil society organizations in the reform process, as well as strategies for improving the effectiveness of public services.