Foreign Intelligence Service to be established

Today, Acting Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan submitted the package of draft Laws of the Republic of Armenia "On making amendments and supplements to the Law of the Republic of Armenia “On foreign intelligence activity and foreign intelligence service” and related laws".

It is proposed to create a Foreign Intelligence Service as a body of public administration system under the Prime Minister. The need to create the Foreign intelligence Service as a separate institution arises from the following factors:

increase of efficiency of the intelligence and counter-intelligence activities;

consistent compliance with the principle of functional differentiation of those activities;

imperatives for natural process of creation of different types of intelligence from the technological perspective, and multi-disciplinary intelligence — from the perspective of the essence of activities.

Both the Ministry of Defence and the National Security Service have subdivisions that perform similar functions, and within those subdivisions, service is considered as military service; there is a political decision to create a new type of state service which will not be military service. There will be an opportunity to recruit also public servants of other government agencies in the Foreign Intelligence Service who will contribute to the functioning of the Foreign Intelligence Service with their experience, knowledge and professionalism.

The creation of the Foreign Intelligence Service will not only help to increase the functional efficiency of the National Security Service by providing the opportunity to focus on counter-intelligence and the fight against terrorism, but will also enable to respond to the challenges of the progressively changing world and the region more flexibly and adequately.

The draft provisions lay down the powers, the system and the structure of the Service; the procedure and the conditions for the formation and activities of the Service for officers to be hired, hold positions, or be dismissed from service and positions and for serving; the classification of positions and ranks; the rights, obligations and responsibilities of servants; the legal and social safeguards and other relations pertaining to service. The transitional provisions of the draft provide for a regulation that other bodies (subdivisions) performing foreign intelligence activities will stop performing these activities 3 years after adoption of the legislative package targeted at the creation and functioning of the Foreign Intelligence Service.