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In 2020, around 415,000 decisions on penalty points for drivers and more than 7,300 decisions on suspension of driving licenses were made in Armenia, with some 2,200 driving licenses temporarily suspended and 45 people deprived of that right, Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan told a sitting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs on Monday.

The minister presented the course of implementation and outcomes of the government's 2020 action plan concerning his area.

Badasyan reminded that since January 1 of the previous year, the scoring system of penalty points has been introduced in Armenia, which is applied only to violations registered by technical means.

According to him, last year the powers of the Commission for Prevention of Corruption were expanded, including the powers to assess the integrity of candidates for public posts and to provide advisory opinions based on it.

"The necessary tools for research by the commission have been introduced, access to state databases has been given on a legislative basis," Badasyan noted.

The justice minister said that in one year the commission checked the integrity of 47 persons, giving a positive conduction in 26 cases, a positive conduction with reservations in 16 cases, a negative conclusion in 4 cases and providing no conclusion in one case.

Badasyan noted that the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption also assessed the declarations of the Supreme Judicial Council members, with the data still being summarized.

According to him, a mechanism has been introduced, according to which, in case of suspicion of a significant change in the property of a declarant official within 2 years after their dismissal, the Commission for Prevention of Corruption will be authorized to ask the latter to submit a situational declaration on income and asset. The monetary threshold for expensive property has been set at 5 million drams or of equal foreign currency instead of 8 million.

Badasyan said that last year the number of declarant officials increased from 3,000 to 9,000.

"In 2020, 1,114 corruption crimes were recorded in Armenia, of which 157 were related to bribery, 160 – misappropriation through abuse of official position, 155 – official forgery, 389 – abuse of official powers and 52 – excess of official powers," Badasyan said.