Lawyer warns against equating systemic corruption with bribery in Armenia

Systemic corruption is often misrepresented as simple bribery, a framing that obscures more dangerous abuses embedded in state institutions, Armenian lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a workshop organised by the AntiCor anti-corruption platform, Khudoyan said bribery is among the most basic – and potentially least harmful – manifestations of corruption, compared with entrenched practices that rely on patronage and institutional complicity.

“Much more dangerous are forms of corruption expressed through patronage, violations of rights, differentiated treatment and double standards,” Khudoyan said, adding that such practices serve both illicit material enrichment and political interests that fall outside the law.

According to Khudoyan, systemic corruption is marked by coordinated actions across different branches of the state apparatus that reinforce one another.

He illustrated the point with an example involving public procurement. A municipal tender may be awarded to a favoured associate who fails to deliver the work properly, prompting scrutiny by anti-corruption actors or bloggers who publicise the case.

“Criminal proceedings may be launched and the case may even reach court,” Khudoyan said. “But for years the judicial process makes no real progress.”