The Partnership for Open Society initiative and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) co-organized a discussion on “Transitional Justice, Corruption, and State Capture: Lessons for Armenia” in Yerevan on 28 October 2019. The discussion was attended by Armenian government institutions, civil society, and mass media representatives.
The purpose of the event was to discuss the role of transitional justice in building a legal and accountable state with a view to fighting corruption, economic crime, and human rights abuses, and fostering an atmosphere of social cohesion.
The first speaker was ICTJ senior expert Ruben Carranza who spoke of the transitional justice experience in post-authoritarian countries. “Transitional justice is sometimes confused with legal work, assuming that it relates to changing and revising laws and policies. However, transitional justice is not merely about reviewing legislation. It is a comprehensive and multilateral examination of the past so as to make it clear in a wider context how the laws had been adopted, enforced, or abused, which had led to systemic violations of human rights and corruption offences,” said the expert. Ruben Carranza stated that, in the administration of transitional justice, it is necessary to guarantee the participation of the whole society, rather than specific groups.
The expert then spoke of the notion of state capture. “State capture occurs when they come to the power in a non-democratic manner for private or personal benefit. One feature of state capture is that systemic corruption in a country leads to mass violations of human rights,” said the expert.
He expressed the belief that transitional justice does not guarantee the complete eradication of corruption, but rather, proposes to study and evaluate the past in order not to allow repetition of state capture. Carranza expressed the opinion that the core mission of truth commissions to be created as a part of transitional justice is to help societies and citizens to understand what actually happened in the past, to draw conclusions from the lessons of the past, and to propose mechanisms for genuine change.
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office chairman Artur Sakunts noted that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a result of examining the past and the knowledge needed to analyze and understand the causes of countless calamities and wars. “I am convinced that the main focus of fixing public and state life and developing the nation was the realization, after World War II, of the need to examine the past and to apologize for the past violence and crimes,” said Sakunts. The human rights advocate believes that every citizen of Armenia has dealt with the consequences of state capture, but the different cases and facts of those years were not collected and presented in a single document.
As an example that state capture had occurred, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office chairman described the faulty practice of rigging election results in Armenia in the past. “People would go and vote, but the results would be falsified. Facts proving the rigged outcome were not of any relevance. There was no mechanism for eliminating the violations. Many believed that, while the laws allowed restoring justice, the judiciary was formed in such a way that it was fully dependent on the will of the executive. This was a typical example of state capture,” said the human rights advocate. Artur Sakunts is convinced that the current Constitution of Armenia, by prescribing the concept of a stable political majority, creates prerequisites for repeating state capture.
Transparency International Anticorruption Center’s project director Varuzhan Hoktanyan said that, when administering transitional justice in Armenia, it will be extremely important to understand the roots and manifestations of the endemic corruption that had become entrenched in Armenia for years. Hoktanyan said Armenian society should be ready for transitional justice and the full uncovering of corruption crimes. “It is necessary to understand whether citizens will take ownership of the changes, not be passive, and support a fact-finding or truth commission. There should be active cooperation between this commission and the citizens. The examination of the past should lead to preventing repetition of what occurred in the past and avoiding selective application of truth and justice,” said Hoktanyan.
The President of the Investigative Journalists non-governmental organization, investigative journalist Edik Baghdasaryan spoke about the role of investigative journalism in the fight against corruption. He noted that numerous investigations fail to incite a wave of public protest.
“Why do investigations in Armenia fail to trigger an uprising? Why does society not demand the authorities to punish the officials engaged in those corrupt schemes? I think one reason is the absence of an opposition that would force the authorities under public pressure to carry out change,” said Baghdasaryan.
The investigative journalist noted that the revelations of corruption crimes and corrupt schemes in Armenia may seriously undermine the workings of the country’s public and state structures and systems. “Our country has numerous problems, and before taking a step, one must thing long and take into account all risks and threats,” said Baghdasaryan.
As chairman of Hetq, Baghdasaryan spoke about the experience of administering transitional justice in various countries and emphasized that one should not copy the experience of other countries, but rather, localize the transitional justice tools in Armenia.
Hennie van Vuuren, president of the Open Secrets non-governmental organization that works in South Africa, presented the South African experience of transitional justice.
“In 2019, South Africa is a 25-year-old democratic and sovereign state. The country faces numerous challenges. Around 50 percent of the population is poor, and society is polarized. Corruption and economic crimes are perceived by society as serious problems. When we carried out transitional justice, we addressed two groups: firstly, those who had committed economic crimes, and secondly, the security services that had been engaged in those crimes. Those crimes destabilized the democratic processes in our country. We describe the years of President Zuma’s rule as a phase of state capture, during which various democratic institutions were shattered, and the country’s intelligence and security service became engaged in the operation of concealing the state capture,” said van Vuuren.
The expert said that the state capture in South Africa took the form of the authorities embezzling the country’s resources, committing countless economic crimes, and encroaching upon fundamental human rights and freedoms. He added that this situation forced the country’s civil society groups to come together and organize people’s tribunals for uncovering economic crimes. Civil society managed to use the information collected through the tribunals’ hearings and to demand the country’s government to hold accountable the authors and perpetrators of those economic crimes. The result of those hearings was that South Africa’s government responded to the issues raised and created a national commission to study the consequences of the state capture.
Hennie van Vuuren expressed his conviction that Armenia has great potential to uncover the corruption and economic crimes. He believes that one simply needs to take into account and to evaluate correctly all the stakeholders and groups that, due to various interests, may oppose to and hinder the attempts at uncovering those crimes.