The proposed amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest in Governmental Institutions of the Federation of BiH are only an interim solution

08 October 2015

The amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest in Governmental Institutions of the Federation of BiH, which are being discussed today by the House of Peoples of the Federation of BiH, although representing a short-term improvement in terms of eliminating a two-year blockage related to the implementation of rules on conflict of interests, will not provide independent and objective implementation of the Law in the long-term sense.

In fact, the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest in Governmental Institutions of the Federation BiH, prescribes that this Law is also applied by the Commission for resolution of conflict of interest in BiH, comprised of the members of the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and representatives of the Agency for prevention of corruption and coordination of fight against corruption. Transparency International BiH was continuously warning about the harmful effects of such composition of an organ in charge of determining and sanctioning the conflict of interest, due to the simple fact that it cannot be objective and independent if mostly comprised of the members of the Parliament, i.e. representatives of political parties. TI BiH reminds us of the fact that the European countries long time ago abandoned the practice to allow the parliamentary commissions decide on the conflict of interest, precisely because that would be a conflict of interest itself.

Although the harmonization of BiH Law with the Law on conflict of interest at state level introduces again monitoring over the implementation of this Law after two years of a complete stagnation, we must find solutions that will ensure long-term unitary and independent monitoring over the implementation of the Law on Conflict of Interest at all government levels.

Considering the fact that the Law on the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and the Coordination of Fight against Corruption assigns the implementation of the Law on conflict of interest to the Agency, Transparency International BiH believes that the most efficient solution in a long run would be to expand the jurisdiction and capacities of the Agency, and to enable the Agency, by consolidating and harmonizing the regulation, to consistently apply these rules. It is also necessary, within the same process, to expand the circle of persons to whom the Law on conflict of interest is applied and to introduce more effective sanctions.

Finally, it is worrying that the official opinion of the both Houses of the FBiH Parliament regarding so important amendments to the Law will be given in two days, without leaving any opportunity for public discussion.

The proposed amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest in Governmental Institutions of the Federation of BiH are only an interim solution

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