Harsher penalties and stronger supervision over public officials and political parties suspected of violating the law

Banja Luka, November 29, 2011. — Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) and Open Society Fund BiH (OSF) sent the Parliamentary Assembly the proposed amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest, Law on Financing of Political Parties and Election Law BiH. The proposed amendments are primarily related to tightening sanctions for violating the law and narrowing possibilities of law misuse.

Within the Law on Conflict of Interest, the proposed amendments are intended to prevent the inappropriate transfer of public officials from the public sector to the private sector; then to oblige public officials to report changes in the assets during their mandate and what is more important to impose sanctions for incorrect and incomplete assets declarations. Transparency International BiH and OSF have proposed setting a deadline for decision making on conflicts of interest as to speed up the process and facilitate efficiency in identifying conflicts of interest.

Most of all, it has been proposed that penalties for conflicts of interest instead of 1,000 to 10,000 KM should be increased from 10,000 up to a maximum of 50,000 KM, as well as abolishing the mandate of public officials who are identified with a conflict of interest, given that they have remained in their positions so far and at the same time achieved great profit.

Within the Law on Financing of Political parties, the proposed amendments are related to imposing an obligation to publish the names of donors of political parties and removing limits on reported donations. In this way, parties would be obliged to report all donations not only the ones larger than 100KM.  In addition, TI BiH and OSF BiH suggest reducing the limit on donations to parties in order to prevent large donors from wielding improper influence over the work of political parties and their decisions. TI BiH and OSF BiH also recommend stricter sanctions including monetary sanctions of up to 100,000 KM and imposing sanctions on suspension of budgetary resources, given that most of the parties’ income comes precisely from the budgets of different levels of government. All the above mentioned is given to ensure that political parties comply with the law.  Stricter sanctions would enable stricter law enforcement particularly bearing in mind that current sanctions have been minor compared to breaches of political parties.

The proposed amendments of the Election Law relate to the extension of the BiH Central Election Commission’s competence i.e. introducing competences of the BiH Central Election Commission (CEC ) to inspect and control assets declarations of public officials, given that the assets declarations have been submitted so far but no one checked their accuracy, and officials had an opportunity to enter data without any consequences. On the other side, bearing in mind that the CEC BiH has been carrying out the audit of revenues since auditing the finances of political parties up to now, in the proposal of TI BiH and OSF BiH there is an emphasis on expenditures aimed at scrutinizing the flow of taxpayers’ money which parties get from the budget

TI BiH and OSF appeal to the members of the Interdepartmental Working Group and the Parliamentary Assembly to demonstrate trust and openness to suggestions from civil society and to take advantage to improve these harsh anti-corruption laws. What is most important is to establish a strengthened surveillance system for the funding of political parties and assets declaration of public officials through these amendments, and to impose harsher penalties for those who violate the law