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RR RUEHDBU
DE RUEHYE #0783/01 1661247
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 151247Z JUN 07
FM AMEMBASSY YEREVAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5791
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0379
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORP WASHDC 0075
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000783 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CARC 
DOJ FOR OPDAT/LEHMANN, NEWCOMBE AND ALEXANDRE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL ASEC KJUS KCRM KDEM KTIP HSTC
AM 
SUBJECT: CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM RESTRUCTURES INVESTIGATIVE 
FUNCTIONS IN ARMENIA 
 
YEREVAN 00000783  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: CDA A.F. Godfrey, reasons 1.4 (b,d) 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  Armenian law enforcement is grappling with a 
major restructuring that strips the powerful Prosecutor 
General's or "Procuracy" organization of all its 
investigative functions and staff, transferring the 
investigators themselves into police agencies.  The reform is 
an excellent one in theory, creating a more Western-style 
separation of roles and authorities between police and 
prosecutors, and will set Armenian criminal justice on a 
sounder footing for the long term.  There may be significant 
short-term disruption, however, as agencies adjust to the 
restructuring.  Prosecutors and the PG investigators are 
roundly demoralized, at the moment, over this blow to their 
previous hegemony over criminal investigations.  Police may 
be happy to have won new resources, but seem so far 
poorly-prepared to assimilate this major influx of staff and 
responsibility.  END SUMMARY 
 
---------------------------------- 
MOVING TOWARD A MORE WESTERN MODEL 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Armenia's new Law on the Procuracy came formally into 
effect May 1, 2007, with many of the provisions in the Law 
taking effect at later dates.  The most significant change 
will be the transfer of all investigative authority from the 
prosecutors' offices, both main and local, to various police 
agencies:  the Investigative Department of the Police, the 
State Tax Service, the State Customs Service, and the Defense 
Ministry's Military Police.  On December 1, 2007, these law 
enforcement bodies will begin investigating cases under this 
new authority.  This Law on the Procuracy is part of broader 
reforms which will be completed with the adoption of the new 
Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) scheduled by January 1, 2008. 
This shift in authority was designed to ensure more 
appropriate separation of powers between the body that 
carries out investigations and the one that oversees the 
investigative process, ideally to create a more transparent 
and fair operation of law-enforcement. 
 
¶3. (SBU) As a result of the reform, the Procuracy (the 
prosecutors' organization, virtually a ministry in its own 
right) will lose about 60 percent of its staff -- with 
investigators moving to different agencies, being converted 
into prosecutors, or leaving the system altogether.  The 
prosecutors that remain will oversee investigations and 
litigate cases in court.  While some local observers consider 
the changes positive, most expect serious challenges in 
implementation, due to an untrained national police agency 
lacking capacity, and to overburdened prosecutors.  The new 
reform law only sets forth the general scope of authority for 
the prosecutors.  The details of this authority will be set 
forth in the new CPC.  Therefore, the detailed nature of the 
reforms is still an open question. 
 
------------------------ 
REINING IN THE PROCURACY 
------------------------ 
 
¶4. (C) Under the Soviet model, the Procuracy (an independent 
agency, headed by the Prosecutor General and comprising 
prosecuting attorneys and criminal investigators) was the 
dominant institution of the criminal justice system, more 
influential than even the judges.  To work in the Procuracy, 
either as a prosecutor or as a criminal investigator, was 
widely considered about the most prestigious job that a young 
lawyer could get.  After Armenia's independence, and under 
Western pressure and assistance, the Procuracy gradually 
ceded significant power and prestige to the judiciary, but 
retained its dominant role with regard to criminal 
investigations.  In practice, however, cooperation between 
police and the Procuracy has generally been abysmal, with 
sharp inter-agency jealousies. 
 
¶5. (C) The new law's major curtailing of prosecutorial 
authorities was a political victory of the former Minister of 
Justice Davit Harutyunyan (now chairman of the State and 
Legal Affairs Committee of the parliament) over his long-time 
policy adversary Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan. 
Nonetheless, publicly Hovsepyan has spoken of his devotion to 
the reforms process and the importance of moving closer to 
the European models. 
 
¶6. (C) Gevorg Danielyan -- then the Deputy Prosecutor 
 
YEREVAN 00000783  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
General, now the newly-appointed Justice Minister -- told us 
glumly May 29 that as a result of these reforms the 
Prosecutor's Office will lose about 60 percent of its 
personnel (down to 250 from about 660), mostly from the 
complete transfer of investigators out of the PG's 
organization.  Danielyan's colleagues, lower-level 
prosecutors from Yerevan and the regions, were equally 
downbeat about the reform's effects, during the May 29 lunch 
at the CDA's residence. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Final numbers signalling which officers will be 
transferred where have not yet been fully worked out.  Most 
of the investigators are likely to move to the National 
Police. Fifty-five investigators from the Military Procuracy 
will move to the Military Police under the Defense Ministry. 
Other investigators will go to the Tax or Customs 
Authorities.  A few may be converted from investigators into 
prosecutors. (NOTE:  PG investigators have typically always 
had law degrees as well.  END NOTE) 
 
¶8.  (C) Some of the prosecutors whose positions are to be cut 
may choose private practice as advocates (defense attorneys), 
taking advantage of new licenses obtained recently in the 
last advocate bar exam.  However, voluntary attrition will 
not be enough.  The Prosecutor General will still need to lay 
off a significant number of employees who will not be 
transferred to other agencies.  The PG spokesperson Sona 
Truzyan explained that a number of retirement-eligible 
investigators preferred do that rather than accept transfer, 
in order to receive a one-time retirement bonus of over USD 
10,000, in addition to their monthly pensions.  This one-time 
bonus payment upon retirement is a unique feature of the 
Procuracy retirement plan that other agencies do not enjoy, 
and one that will be lost by all staff transferring out of 
the Procuracy to eventually retire out of other agencies. 
 
¶9. (C) Grisha Mikayelyan, the chief prosecutor for Kotayk 
Marz, told us that there is a significant cohort of 
investigators (from the high  50s to early 60s in age) who 
are too young to qualify for the prosecutorial retirement 
package, but above the mandatory police retirement age of 55, 
and are therefore ineligible for transfer. Presumably most of 
these investigators will be simply laid off without a 
retirement pension, but this is not entirely clear yet. 
 
---------------------------------- 
REFORMS - STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) According to Truzyan, at this point the reforms 
process is still at an initial stage, since many legal and 
procedural gaps remain.  The Criminal Procedural Code (CPC), 
which regulates many of these issues, must be amended in 
light of the new Law on the Procuracy's requirements, but 
these CPC changes are still being drafted.  Truzyan told us 
that to make the transition easier the Procuracy may finish 
the investigations of its pending cases, but the police will 
handle all the new cases.  This seems to contradict the text 
of the new law.  Moreover, Kotayk chief prosecutor Mikayelyan 
stated that investigators who are converted into prosecutors 
will continue to investigate not only pending cases, but also 
newly initiated cases until December 1, 2007. 
 
¶11. (C) In another reform measure, the Prosecutor General has 
approved a Code of Conduct for Prosecutors, a Qualifying 
Committee, and a Commission on Ethics (comprised of 7 
members, 4 of whom are non-prosecutors appointed by the 
President) which will monitor prosecutorial conduct. 
 
-------------------------------- 
NOT ONLY PROSECUTORS ARE UNHAPPY 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Losing a significant swath of its powers and staff, 
the Prosecutor General's organization is unsurprisingly 
unhappy from top to bottom.   Many prosecutorial 
investigators are reportedly reluctant to transfer into the 
national police agency.  We hear that any who can manage it 
are pulling strings to win one of the much scarcer positions 
in the military police, tax, or customs agencies, rather than 
transfer into the national police.  These investigators are 
reportedly not eager to join the ranks of the very police 
whom they had until recently overseen (perhaps even pushed 
around) from their position as PG investigators -- previously 
deemed far the more prestigious and powerful organization. 
 
YEREVAN 00000783  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶13. (C) Independent analysts are concerned about the risk of 
chaos in the law-enforcement community arising from these 
organizational changes.  Up until now, the bulk of the 
serious criminal investigation work was done by the criminal 
investigators working in the various regional prosecutors' 
offices or in the office of the Prosecutor General in 
Yerevan.  The police typically have only investigated petty 
crimes or conducted limited initial investigations of more 
serious cases before transferring the case file to 
prosecutors' jurisdiction. 
 
¶14. (C) The director of the Advocates Union, Ruben Sahakian, 
told us that he is deeply concerned about the new Law because 
he thinks the level of professionalism in investigations will 
suffer tremendously.  He referred to police as "butchers," 
unsophisticated investigators whose crude methods rely 
excessively on intimidation.  Another widespread concern 
among observers is that the prosecutors will be overburdened 
without the help of their investigative staff, and which 
could lead to cursory oversight over the criminal caseload. 
 
¶15. (C) A further concern is whether and how long it will 
take before working level prosecutors and police develop the 
kind of cooperative, day-to-day relationship on case 
management that the new structure will require.  Under the 
previous model, police and prosecutors/investigators only 
rarely interacted at the working level; such interaction as 
existed -- beyond rote file transfers -- was conducted at 
senior levels of the two organizations.   The new model will 
require police investigators and prosecutors to closely and 
informally cooperate without continual recourse to superiors 
and other formalistic bureaucratic procedures that define the 
Armenian law enforcement relationships. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶16. (C) This will be a tough transition for Armenian 
authorities, but one which is needed and will help Armenia in 
the long run.  This is an important step in breaking down the 
vestiges of top-down, authoritarian justice that the 
centralized and all-powerful Procuracy long represented. 
Armenian authorities were driven by former Justice Minister 
Harutyunian to take this difficult step toward a more 
democratic, Western-style model as a leap of faith.  It will 
be hard in the short term, but will pay important dividends 
in the long run, as formal checks and balances in the 
criminal justice system will better protect civil liberties 
and human rights, and will over time reduce abuse of the 
justice system by political masters. 
 
GODFREY 
GODFREY