The draft amendments would make the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption responsible for those audits and add a para 4 which stipulates “The audit provided for by part 3 of this Article shall be financed from funds of the State Budget and shall be carried out by an auditing organisation that meets the standards defined by an authorised state body, by randomly selecting an auditing organisation for each political party from among auditing organisations". This is in line with prior ODIHR recommendations that the costs of audits are covered from the State Budget.54 However, the means of randomly selecting an auditing organisation for each party should be clarified. Furthermore, the Law should stipulate the requirements auditing organisations must fulfil in order to be considered. In case only national auditing organisations are considered, it may be prudent to assess if there are a sufficient number of auditing organisations in Armenia which fulfil the required criteria and are licensed and qualified to carry out the above-mentioned audits. The law should be clearer about how auditing organisations will be selected: will the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption select an organisation for each party or will it establish a list of organisations the parties may contract with? In case no auditing organisation accepts such an assessment, it should be made mandatory. The authorities are ready to make the law more precise in the field.
