Speaking at the conference ”Support to Development of BiH Anti-Corruption Policies ” Richard Wood, Head of Home Affairs & Public Security Section said:
”It is my pleasure to address this esteemed conference and introduce its participants to the main features of the Anti corruption Framework in BiH in the Context of EU Accession.
Let me begin with by reminding ourselves that according to the 2013 Transparency International corruption perception index, BiH occupies the 72nd position out of 177 world states, and is the lowest-ranked country in the Western Balkan region. This is a drop of almost 30 places compared to last year, when BiH was ranked 43rd.
Along the same lines, the large scale survey carried by UNODC entitled “Corruption in BiH, bribery as experienced by the population” published in 2011 showed that citizens rank corruption as the fourth most important problem after unemployment, the performance of the government and poverty of low standards of living.
Therefore, the EU has several times repeated that the fight against corruption must remain one of the core priorities for the national authorities at all levels. In this context, the 2013 Progress Report highlights that complex connections between political actors, business and the media are putting democratic institutions and procedures at risk and making the detection of corrupt practices more difficult.
It concludes by saying that “Overall, Bosnia and Herzegovina is at an early stage in the fight against corruption. The implementation of the State-level anti-corruption strategy and action plan needs to be stepped up. Key pieces of legislation regarding the financing of political parties, conflict of interest and access to information have been amended in ways that undermine previous achievements. Corruption remains widespread, with an insufficient track record of investigation and prosecution in high-profile cases that have a negative impact on society and the economy”.
A number of critical areas have already been identified. Some of them stem from the 7th March seminar mapping exercise which paved the way to expanding the structured dialogue on justice to additional rule of law matters. Here are a few which are related to the fight against corruption:
• Assess the processing of privatization cases;
• Monitor the implementation of new legislation in the field of public procurement law;
• Promote and implement whistle-blower protection throughout the country;
• Promote access to information. In this context, reconciliation between the right to personal data protection/right to privacy and the right of access to information should be sought;
• Ensure that the anti-corruption agency continues building on its capacity. In this context, it was mentioned that the new competences recently entrusted to the agency (covering conflict of interest, law on whistle-blowers) do not impact negatively on
its functioning;
• Enhance recovery and management of illegally gained assets;
• Regulations governing conflict of interest should be implemented in the political arena but also in the judiciary;
• Enhance incentives for judges and prosecutors to tackle complex cases (for example, this could be done by revising the appraisal system);
• More generally, other features have been identified in the past, these include:
• The lack of reliable and timely data and analysis of governance and integrity issues.
• The weak institutional capacity and inability to formulate/co-ordinate policy;
• The weak capacity of parliaments to develop, co-ordinate and monitor the implementation of anti-corruption policies, strategies and laws;
• The general lack of political will to tackle corruption;
• The high acceptance of corruption and the subsequent weak public pressure to change;
• Weak public sector ethics;
• A captured political system and opaque party financing and questionable procurement procedures;
There are two main reasons why the fight against corruption is important in the EU accession process:
The first reason is political, as the EU membership conditions (the so called Copenhagen Criteria) require that a candidate country must have achieved, among others, the stability of institutions guaranteeing the rule of law.
Clearly, there is no rule of law where corruption is preventing law enforcement and judiciary to function effectively, where administrations and the judiciary systems are weak and where journalists who write about corruption are exposed to threats. The second reason is economic, as corruption hampers economic development and undermines the proper functioning of a market economy.
It is indeed proven that Corruption has a major price for the economy: less revenue income, reduced growth, higher consumer prices, higher investment costs, a bigger informal sector and reduced competition. Moreover corruption hampers investments – especially foreign investments which are much needed especially in this time of economic crisis. The business community needs fairness, transparency and predictability.
In practical terms, the new EU approach to Chapter 23 of the EU acquis calls for a genuine commitment from aspiring countries to tackle corruption and to demonstrate a track record of achievements, in particular a solid number of investigations, prosecutions and adjudicated cases of corruption by courts.
On the prevention side, EU pays considerable attention to the implementation of relevant international and European standards. The EU has put the fight against corruption high on its agenda by making it a benchmark in the post visa liberalisation monitoring mechanism.
In this context, the efficiency and sustainability of the work of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and on Coordination in fight of corruption – and by extension – the Anti-corruption strategy is carefully monitored.
It will become even more strictly monitored once the country directly opens accession negotiations.
Tackling corruption is complex and will take time. There is therefore no time to lose. This was recognised by the EU and the national authorities during the last Plenary Session of the Structured Dialogue on Justice held in May this year.
On this occasion, a series of concrete recommendations were made by the EU Commission, based on the findings of the national authorities. Such recommendations illustrates the necessity to revisit the legislative framework and its implementation.
Some practices can be considered from other countries in the region:
In Serbia for example, where the focus was put on improving a track record of achievements, whereby 24 privatisation cases were highlighted for review, with the relevant inaction of prosecutors leading the European Parliament and the European Commission to specifically request a follow up on these cases.
Montenegro conducted a comprehensive analysis of the legal and institutional set-up as well as the organisation, capacities and competences of all state authorities and public administration bodies involved in the fight against organised crime and corruption – which resulted in or are being translated into a series of policy and legal measures paving the way to opening the EU accession negotiations with Chapters 23 and 24 in July 2013.
From a BiH judicial perspective, it might be worth reconsidering the current 100% discretion of the Chief Prosecutors throughout the country to allocate cases. Since the principle of random allocation of cases goes contrary to prosecution by smaller structures (special departments, multi-disciplinary task forces for corruption etc.) where a risk to have always the same prosecutors/investigators dealing with the same type of cases is difficult to avoid, an exchange of experience with similar successful structures from EU MS (for example Croatia, Italy) would be welcome.
Improving cases management and oversight as well as accountability within Chief Prosecutors’ Offices by revising the Rulebooks on internal organisation could equally be beneficial.
From an operational perspective, a broad agreement for strengthening / institutionalising multi-disciplinary investigation teams could be envisaged, the use of Joint Investigative Teams / Task Forces, push for harmonized prosecutorial work ie. regular meeting of Chief Prosecutors to, for example, define common criteria for “high level corruption case”.
Last but not least, a credible criminal policy and a convincing criminal justice process are needed. In this regard, judiciaries and law enforcement agencies – free from political interference and capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting corruption in a coordinated fashion – are a must.
In sum, corruption needs to get a price tag that makes it too expensive from a cost-benefit point of view.
Let me highlight one of the key policy instruments in the fight against corruption: this is the new anti-corruption strategy and its correlated action plan, which are both due to expire at the end of this year.
In this context, the EU has devoted a significant amount of resources in supporting the BiH national authorities.
From a project perspective, the EU is at this very moment supporting BIH with a two-million euro IPA project, that is directly supporting the Agency in preparing a new Anticorruption strategy and 6 NGOS in supporting implementation of the existing anticorruption action plan an fight against corruption.
In this context, a set of recommendations of the Structured Dialogue on Justice and additional Rule of Law matters have been issued by the European Commission to the national authorities. They include, amongst others, the pivotal importance to ensure inclusiveness in the approach of preparing the new anti-corruption strategy for the period 2015-2019.
In this context, in co-operation with the Agency for prevention of corruption and co-ordination of the fight against corruption (hereinafter, the Agency), the EU Commission invited the Council of Ministers to establish an adequately representative Working Group at BiH level comprised of members from different fields and jurisdictions, with a view to draft and adopt a result-oriented and realistic new anti-corruption strategy at the BiH level for the period 2015-2019, with the corresponding action plan.
The EU Commission further stressed that that priority setting for the new strategy should stem from a comprehensive qualitative analysis of the implementation of the current strategy, a thorough corruption risk assessment, as well as available sector research. In this regard, the EU Commission shared the concerns expressed by representatives from civil society organisations, as emerged in the context of the Structured Dialogue plenary debate.
The plenary session also touched upon the necessity to have an adequate anti corruption legislative framework, compliant with international requirements in areas such as political party financing, conflict of interest and public procurement.
Finally, the European Commission recommended to the State-level authorities to tackle the issue of managing confiscated assets in the course of criminal proceedings by the Court of BiH and to find a solution along the line that the Entities have been working on the matter (RS has already a dedicated Agency, while the FBiH is on the way to have one).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
To summarize, the new anti-corruption strategy and its action plan are key instruments in the support to the development of BiH anti-corruption policies. As a consequence, the new strategy should be drafted in the spirit of inclusiveness, including civil society.
The new strategy should be drafted by a Working Group appointed by the Council of Ministers and later adopted by the later to ensure maximum political buy-in.
Finally, the measures envisaged must be realistic and implementable, while the measurement indicators must lead towards genuine progress in preventing and suppressing corruption.
The EU recognises corruption to be a serious challenge and an obstacle to democratic and economic development; and we think it is high time that BiH equally recognises the extent to which corruption harms the functioning of institutions and economy and makes the fight against corruption one of its utmost priorities at all levels of government.
I trust that the following presentations will give your assembly ample food for thoughts, using the experience of countries in the region and the valuable expertise of dedicated international and national institutions to translate good words into concrete, measurable and effective achievements.
The EU maintains a coordinated approach with other international actors in BiH, such as UNDP, providing unequivocal support to fighting corruption.
Let me conclude by reiterating the unequivocal support of the EU in the fight against corruption and wish you all success in this conference.
Thank you.”
ST