Conclusions of the Conference Conflict of Interest and Property Records – long-term solutions for institutional and legal framework

The general conclusion made by all participants is that an immeasurable damage has been done to the integrity system by the Amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest in Governmental Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 2013, which prescribed the establishment of the Commission for determining the conflict of interest, mainly consisting of the representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, i.e. the authorities and representatives of the political parties. The additional damage has been done by a two-year blockade of the implementation of the Law, resulting from the obstruction of the process of establishing the Commission and the Office of the Commission, i.e. the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight against the Corruption. The same blockade has emerged at the level of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has not amended the Law on Conflict of Interest in a way to establish the body for determining the conflict of interest. Therefore, the most important message of the Conference is that such politicized and fractured system of preventing and determining the conflict of interest is unsustainable, and the fact that the members of the Commission are in a potential conflict of interest from the very beginning, does not help the citizens believe in the objectivity and independence of of the process of determining the conflict of interest of their party colleagues.

Discussion about the solutions for the improvement of the legal framework regarding the conflict of interest and property records, as well as the establishment of the effective supervision over the implementation of the Law, resulted in the following conclusions and recommendations:

• Laws on conflict of interest need to be harmonized mutually, in order to eliminate differences in the range of persons to whom the same are applied and situations which are defined as conflict of interest; at the same time it is necessary to expand the range of persons to whom these laws are applied so to include as many officials in decision-making positions as possible, and to tighten sanctions.
• It is necessary to ensure effective and objective implementation of the Laws on conflict of interest – depoliticize law enforcement authorities, and instead of the commission comprised of the representatives of the Parliament, ensure the extension of powers, and therefore the capacity of the Agency for prevention of corruption and coordination of the fight against corruption which emerges as a logical choice of institution which should be responsible for the implementation of the Law on conflict of interest.
• It is necessary to unify regulations governing the conflict of interest with the regulations governing the property records, since they are basically related, and they should be applied by the same institution and to the same persons.
• It is necessary to urgently eliminate barriers to the disclosure of property records, in order to provide the citizens with the access to information contained in the records on the property status of the public officials.
• The existence of property records is meaningless unless they are regularly checked, which is why it is necessary to adopt the provisions on the establishment of supervision and verification of the accuracy of information inserted into property records, as well as sanctions for providing false information.

Based on these conclusions, TI BiH will perform additional consultations with the relevant institutions, and then submit proposals for the amendments to the laws on which it will insist in the future period trying to ensure the support by the legislators.

TI BiH organized this Conference as a part of the Project of sustainability of civil society (CSSP), on whose implementations TI BiH is working together with the Center for Investigative Reporting, with the support of USAID.

Conclusions of the Conference Conflict of Interest and Property Records – long-term solutions for institutional and legal framework