Subject: Open letter to members of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH in the occasion of statutory initiatives that are opposing democratic principles and citizens’ interests

Parliamentary Assembly of BiH

Attn. All members of the House of Representatives

and the House of People

Dear Parliamentarians,

We address you in the occasion of current statutory initiatives, i.e. announced law amendments and adoption of new legal provisions, specifically the Law on Conflict of Interest, the amendments to the Election Law and the amendments to the Law on Civil Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We consider the new legal solutions to be against fundamental democratic standards and directly aimed against citizens’ interests. In modern democratic countries, the exercise of power requires accountability, which is essential for any system to function in a way that promotes public interest. It is in this sense that the accountability of the Parliament, elected directly by citizens, is vital. Namely, we want to explain that the adoption of the prepared legal provisions, that are significantly worse than the existing ones, and contradict the international obligations taken by BiH and significantly restrict citizen rights, would directly oppose the public interest.

More precisely, the new proposal of the Law on Conflict of Interests of BiH practically legalizes conflict of interests and enables public officials wider space for dealing with their private interests during their public service, while citizens would not even be able to report conflict of interests. As we already warned in several occasions, this law proposal is directly aimed against interests of citizens and public interest in general. Additionally, instead of tightening the penal policy, the Law predict only monetary fines for perpetrators, which compared to the opportunities that the proposed law offers to public officials for acquiring enormous personal gain, would only be symbolic.

Moreover, the announced amendments to the Election Law of BiH, according to which the candidate lists would be closed, so that citizens would not be able to vote for individuals on the lists, but only for the party list, introduce a new election model in which the mandate won at the elections would belong to the party, and not the member of the parliament. In this way, the established democratic practice of direct elections would be eroded which would violate the citizen rights of choice while voting.

In the end, the initiative for the amendments of the Law on Civil Service in BiH institutions, according to which the status of the civil servants would be taken away from assistant ministers, secretaries in state institutions and ministries, and directors of the offices and agencies, is also against the international standards and directly contributes to the politicization of civil service. The ultimate goal of this initiative is ensuring that, besides minister and their deputies, a series of positions within ministries is assigned by political line, and not based on their professional qualifications and regardless of which party is in power, and thus ensuring suitable party, and not professional, staff in civil service of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Changing the staff with every change of administration, i.e. appointing only suitable party staff would present a blow to the independence and professionalism in civil service and would lead to a complete takeover of political control over the BiH institutions

Having in mind all that is stated here, Transparency International BiH and Open Society Fund BiH appeal to you as member of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina to, in light of these arguments, once again consider the mentioned law proposals and initiative and, based on this, make decisions that would be grounded on public interest, international standards and democratic principles.

Yours sincerely,

Emir Djikic
Chair of the Board of Director
Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dobrila Govedarica
Executive Director
Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina