Draft Law on Civil Servants and Employees in Local Self-Government Units of RS adopted many recommendations provided by TI BiH

adopted many recommendations provided by TI BiH
TI BiH welcomes the solutions that better regulate the public competition procedure, so, for example, now the mayors and heads of municipalities are obliged to choose the best-ranked candidate, which is something insisted on persistently during the public debate.

Banja Luka, 14th October 2016 – The National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska adopted at its 14th regular session the Draft Law on Civil Servants and Employees in Local Self-Government Units. Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) submitted earlier its comments regarding the Draft Law to the MPs, with a special emphasis on the manner in which the public competition procedure has been regulated.
The Draft Law adopted a great number of recommendations and observations provided by TI BiH during the public debate. Thus, we now have defined related parties who are not allowed to use the work of civil servants to achieve their rights. A proposal according to which a civil servant who used to be an entrepreneur must provide to his employer information on a person he transferred the management rights to, including the evidence on the transfer, has also been adopted. These provisions are very important for prevention of the abuse of administrative positions to obtain personal gain.
TI BiH particularly welcomes the solutions which better regulate the public competition procedure, which now makes the mayors and heads of municipalities obliged to choose the best-ranked candidate, which is something persistently insisted on by TI BiH. The original solution made the public competition pointless, since it allowed the appointment of the candidate who did not have the best qualifications.
Still disputable are the solutions that give no priority to open competition compared to other methods (transfer and internal competition), as well as the fact that the tender commission is not mostly composed of independent experts, which can again lead to political and other forms of influence on the election of candidate.
Improvement of solutions from the Draft Law showed the importance of conducting the public and expert debate in the law adoption process, which is still in most cases absent. TI BiH emphasizes that it is necessary to keep improving the employment procedures in the units of local self-government, but that the consistent implementation of new provisions after their adoption will be of key importance.

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