The Ethics Committee for High-Ranking Officials has found that the head of a supervisory body subordinate to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has violated rules of ethics set out in Armenia’s law on public service.
In a statement this week the Committee said that by his activities Davit Sanasarian, the head of the State Oversight Service, “did not contribute to the credibility of and respect towards his office and the body he represents.”
The Committee conducted a probe based on the application submitted by Yerevan State University Rector Aram Simonian, who insisted that Sanasarian made public statements that resulted in grave breaches of ethics rules.
Sanasarian earlier stated that misappropriations worth over 800 million drams (about $1.6 million) had been found at the university headed by Simonian.
A criminal case was launched last year in connection with alleged misappropriations.
Simonian has been under pressure to resign since the change of government last year. He claims he is targeted because of his political affiliation as a member of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia.
The Ethics Committee for High-Ranking Officials found that Sanasarian’s public statement and social media post “can be reasonably perceived and interpreted as a display of biased attitude and demonstration of force.”
State Oversight Service head Sanasarian told reporters after a government session on Thursday that he does not accept the Ethics Committee’s ruling and will appeal it in court.
“This probe should not have been launched in the first place, and secondly, there are no grounds for such a ruling,” he said.
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