VIDEO: Why Are Prosecutor and Deputy Salaries Being Increased? The Minister Explains

The Minister of Justice of Armenia, Karen Andreasian, clarified today why they intend to significantly raise the salaries of the Chief Prosecutor and his deputies.

He stated that the Ministry of Justice is not overly concerned with the salary increase of any specific official or officials.

"The logic has been as follows: we are implementing reforms to the anti-corruption overall system and executing a strategy. In other words, aside from its functions, the ministry is also organizing the creation of the Anti-Corruption Committee and anti-corruption courts," he said.

According to the minister, the salaries in the Anti-Corruption Court and Anti-Corruption Committee are higher than those in the Prosecutor's Office, which serves as an intermediary between the court and the committee.

"Therefore, it was becoming illogical that the committee's investigators were earning higher salaries than the prosecutors who would be engaged with anti-corruption logic. We proposed that the salaries of the prosecutors be raised; however, if we made the salary of the head of the relevant department of the Chief Prosecutor's Office proportional to that of an investigator and a judge, it turned out that the head of the Chief Prosecutor's department would require a higher salary than the Deputy Chief Prosecutor and the Chief Prosecutor himself," he stated.

The minister noted that they could not see this solution in any other way than raising the salaries of everyone in the overall system.

Karen Andreasian pointed out that this is also the logic of international experts and a general requirement—that the salaries of employees in the anti-corruption block should be higher. "In this case, no official's salary is being discussed for an increase; this is merely a goal to understand how to ensure that the anti-corruption system, which has several times more complexities and risks, is done in a way that if salaries are to be increased, that increase should be somewhat logical. Perhaps our solution is not the best; we are trying to raise the salary of the department head and prosecutors to bring a degree of reasonableness to it. For this reason, we have put it up for discussion and are not even officially insisting that this is the best solution," said the Minister of Justice.

It is also noteworthy that the Ministry of Justice has presented a draft proposing to grant the Chief Prosecutor and his deputies a monthly allowance of 90-120% of their salary.