On February 7 an extended board session was held at the RA Investigative Committee which was headed by Argishti Kyaramyan, the Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee.

The members of the board, the heads of the functional subdivisions of the RA Investigative Committee, as well as investigator-veterans took part in the session.

The Deputies Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee, heads of separate subdivisions and the Secretary General of the RA Investigative Committee presented the results and achievements of the work of the subdivisions operating under their coordination or leadership in 2023, legal and other problems manifested in practice, as well as what needs to be done.

It was stated that about 98.2% of the criminal proceedings investigated by investigative bodies operating in the republic in 2023 was investigated in the proceeding of the RA Investigative Committee.

Pursuant to it, 184.018 criminal proceedings were investigated in 2023 in which 96.041 criminal proceedings, investigated, suspended in previous years and currently resumed, were also included.

The total number of clean proceedings without the mentioned resumed proceedings was 89.296 which is by 49.2% or 29.466 proceedings more as compared with the previous year - 2022.

The quantitative increase in the proceedings is due to certain increase in crime cases, but mainly to legislative changes pursuant to which no materials are prepared any longer based on the received reports.  The issue to initiate or not to initiate a criminal proceeding on the base of the received reports is solved by the investigator within 24 hours.

Out of the above-mentioned 89,296 cases, 74,813 cases have been resolved; that is productivity is 83.8%. Along with the increase in proceedings, the average workload of investigators has also increased; the average workload of one investigator within the framework of clean proceedings was 148, within proceedings in total, it was 304 criminal proceedings.

However, in the conditions of such quantitative growth and unprecedented workload of investigators, tangible qualitative results have been recorded.

Particularly, the number of incomplete criminal proceedings is by about 44% less in 2023 than in 2022. Besides, in 2023 33.304 criminal proceedings have been completed which is by 65.6% more, as compared with 2022. Moreover, 8.305 of completed criminal proceedings have been completed with the bill of indictment and on 9.511 persons have been sent to court. As compared with the previous year, the number of the proceedings sent to court has grown with 74%, and the number of persons – with 78.3%.

24.944 criminal proceedings have been terminated which is by 9.634 proceedings or 62.9% more than those of the previous year. Moreover, 19.258 of the mentioned proceedings have been terminated on rehabilitative, 5.650 – on non-rehabilitative base, 36 – on other bases.

The completed criminal proceedings within which procedural and evidentiary actions were completed were also more by 34.1%.

Besides, in the conditions of significant growth of investigators’ workload, the number of proceedings with not approved bill of indictment and returned for preliminary investigation, has decreased by about 37% which testifies about conduction of more qualitative investigation.

Serious results were achieved in the process of recovering the damage caused to the state and communities by crimes. In the period under discussion, the recovery of property damage caused by both completed and ongoing criminal proceedings exceeds 34 billion AMD.

Within the criminal proceedings investigated only in the General Department of Investigation of Smuggling and Economic Crimes of the RA Investigative Committee, 28 billion AMD has been recovered to the state budget in 2023 which is equal to the indicators of the previous few years taken together.

8147 active proceedings have been investigated in the RA IC General Military Investigative Department, preliminary investigation of 3146 criminal proceedings has been completed. 981 of them on 1185 persons have been completed with the bill of indictment (in 2022 544 criminal cases on 586 persons). That is the number of criminal proceedings on crime cases in the armed forces, completed with the bill of indictment, has increased by 80.3%, the number of persons – by more than 100%, as compared with the previous year.

In general, Argishti Kyaramyan assessed positively the work done by the subdivisions of the RA Investigative Committee emphasizing especially its qualitative component.

Attaching importance to the increasing rate of completion of proceedings in the conditions of limitations of criminal prosecution terms during the preliminary investigation under the current Criminal Procedure Code, heavy workload, Mr. Kyaramyan assigned to bring the preliminary investigation of long-standing criminal proceedings to their conclusion in a planned manner.

In terms of restoring social justice, the maintenance of such a high bar as the restoration of damages caused to the state by crime was particularly emphasized by the Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee who considered the results recorded by the Committee during the first month of 2024 also impressive.

Referring to the criminal proceedings investigated in the RA IC General Military Investigative Department, Argishti Kyaramyan considered the results of the investigation of crimes against military order in the Armenian armed forces during the 44-day war to be particularly significant from the point of view of eliciting the causes of the war, stating that that 6 of the 7 main areas of the investigation are already in the final stages and legal evaluations were given to the facts in terms of ascertaining important circumstances. The RA IC Chairman assigned to bring the ongoing investigations within several counts to a logical end in the shortest possible time frame, as well as take additional measures to get the results of the commissioned expertises.

Considering that in 2024 it is the 10^th anniversary of the establishment of the RA Investigative Committee, by Argishti Kyaramyan’s instruction given at the Board session, an appropriate committee will be created with this regard to develop and implement jubilee events.

Based on the results and problems recorded in specific areas, Mr. Kyaramyan addressed other assignments to the heads of the RA IC subdivisions.

During the Board session oath ceremony of the newly appointed investigators took place.