Speech of NKR President Bako Sahakyan at the board meeting of the NKR Office of Public Prosecutor

Respected officers of the Office of Public Prosecutor,

Every democratic country prioritizes safeguarding superiority of law and legality, defending the legal system, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens. From this very point the role of the Office of Public Prosecutor is of great importance for our country and society.

I would like to express my satisfaction with the massive and effective work the Office of Public Prosecutor has carried out in recent times. The new work style of the system is welcome and should be of a continued nature. It will doubtlessly contribute to increasing the level of our people’s confidence in the Office of Public Prosecutor and establishing supremacy of law and justice, which is an integral part of democracy.

I have been informed about the new phase of reforms and structural innovations currently being carried out in the Office of Public Prosecutor. This is the strong requirement of the Constitution, in accordance with which a qualitatively new “Law on The Office of Public Prosecutor” was adopted.

The policy of the republic’s authorities is definite and immutable: any unlawful action is totally unacceptable for us. This is the requirement of the law and your institution is also responsibility for applying it. I do not doubt that you clearly realize you the share of your responsibility.

During the last one year the Office of Public Prosecutor has targeted combating corruption and bribery and strengthening law and order. Within this context I valuate positive a number of indices. In the year of 2008 the Office of Public Prosecutor registered 74 crimes committed against public service and governing system against 35 ones in 2007. In comparison with the previous year the volume of reimbursement of damages caused to the State has increased tenfold. The number of the disclosed violations and the revisions based on the obtained data concerning the damages caused to the State has increased too. New impetus should be given to these works.

At the same time it is necessary pay attention to drawbacks and oversights that are present in the system. First of all there are individual cases of tolerance towards the struggle against criminality, low level of professionalism, which naturally cast a shadow on the reputation of the system.

Another target of the Office of Public Prosecutor is struggle against abuses by the state officials. I am abreast of necessary measures taken by you in this direction. According to the new “Law on the Office of Public Prosecutor” the struggle against the abovementioned phenomena should be one of the main fields of the structure’s activities.

The Office of Public Prosecutor as a structure defending legality possesses a powerful weapon -the law, which must be applied to defend the rights and interests of the state, the people and individual citizens. Persistent, highly professional and consecutive work will be encouraged by the authorities.

More productive organization of the system’s activities requires deepening and developing cooperation with the other law enforcement agencies and other appropriate state structures. Such a tradition has been already formed and it needs to be further developed.

The problem of providing the system with cadres of high moral traits, professional knowledge and skills is of great importance. Within this context the new way of hiring people on a competitive applying by the leadership of the Office of Public Prosecutor is welcome.

Professionalism, honesty impartiality should be priorities for every officer of the structure.

The state keeps in the spotlight problems the system faces and ways to solve them. Appropriate steps have already been taken to improve your work conditions and strengthen material and technical basis. Since January 1 of the current year the salaries of the system officers has substantially increased.

I would like to hope that the personnel of the Office of Public Prosecutor will fulfill the tasks it has been assigned with whole responsibility and will ensure supremacy of law, defend the interests of the state and its citizen.

Thank you.

Stepanakert, January 27, 2009.