The Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest is important for the prevention of corruption, the adoption procedure is not transparent

Banja Luka, March 8, 2024 – Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) welcomes the adoption of the new Law on Prevention of Conflicts of Interest in BiH, which represents an important mechanism for the prevention of corruption. The adoption of this law as well as other anti-corruption reforms have been obstructed by the ruling structure for years, and during that time BiH became the second worst ranked country in Europe in terms of corruption.

The law brings numerous qualitative improvements, such as the establishment of an independent Commission that will replace the current political way of making decisions on conflicts of interest, as well as the establishment of a public register of state officials’ assets.

At the same time, TI BiH warns that important provisions of this law were changed at the last minute, which explicitly stipulated the obligation of all institutions in BiH to submit data on assets to the Commission for deciding on conflicts of interest, which is necessary to control the accuracy of the information provided by officials in the asset registers. Instead, the adopted version tentatively emphasizes that the institutions will cooperate, which again leaves room for possible obstructions of this mechanism for controlling the assets of public officials. In the same way, the Council of Ministers recently weakened the amendments to the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, which is why representatives of relevant international organizations, including the EU, reacted.

Also, the method of decision-making in the Commission on the dismissal of officials, which foresees the consensus of all members, i.e. a two-thirds majority, in practice can lead to the fact that sanctions that foresee dismissal or resignation are not pronounced at all. This is not equivalent to the way decisions are made by other institutions at the state level. The law mostly maintains the existing restrictions regarding the performance of multiple functions and the financing of private enterprises run by public officials and their family members. The threshold of allowed income from the budget for citizens’ associations led by officials has been increased from the current ten to twenty thousand, that is, from 50,000 to 70,000 for sports associations.

TI BiH considers completely unacceptable that laws, especially those of great importance for the prevention of corruption, but also for the further progress of BiH in the process of EU integration, are passed in complete contradiction to the regulations for the adoption of laws. It should be pointed out that the whole process went beyond basic international standards such as conducting consultations, making an assessment of the impact of regulations and basic transparency of the process through extra-institutional arrangements, which is inherent in authoritarian regimes, and certainly not to a country that needs to start negotiations on joining the European Union.