The Low Level of Transparency of Institutions Undermines Citizens’ Confidence in their Work

Sarajevo, June 14, 2023 – The work of governments and assemblies of cantons, entities and parliaments at the state level in Bosnia and Herzegovina is insufficiently public, which denies the possibility of citizens’ participation in the control of their work and the decision-making process,which is why there is growing distrust in the work of institutions as well as room for corruption, is the message of the round table entitled“Transparency of the decision-making process in BiH”held today in Sarajevo in the organization of Transparency International in BiH.

At the round table, which was organized with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, presented are the results of the research published as part of the analysis entitled“Overview of the Level of Proactive Transparency of the Decision-Making Process” which included the institutions of the executive and legislative authorities at the cantonal, entity and BiH levels, indicating the worrying lack of transparency of public bodies throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The research showed that no government in Bosnia and Herzegovina regularly publishes materials from the held sessions on its internet presentations, while the Council of Ministers and the Government of the Posavina Canton are one of the two institutions of executive power whose minutes from the held sessions are published in a timely manner and are available to citizens.

This data, as well as the fact that only 5 out of 14 governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina regularly announce decisions on their official sites, indicates that citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not adequately informed about the decisions of the executive authorities that directly affect them, which reduces the degree of public trust in their work.

Legislative bodies throughout BiH do not show any better state of proactive transparency either, since the research showed that the assemblies of cantons, entities, as well as both houses of the Parliament of BiH do not regularly publish plans or reports on public debates, i.e. hearings, and reports on their work are regularly published by only 5 of 16 legislative bodies at the observed levels of government in BiH.

An overview of the level of proactive transparency of the decision-making process shows that in BiH there are governments whose activities the public is insufficiently familiar with, while citizens are denied information on key stages in the work of parliaments, which adversely affects citizens’ trust in institutions and reduces their ability to protect their interests, which in total increases the space for corruption.

“The publication of data and reports on the work of institutions, but also on decision-making processes is what is disputed,”said Srđan Blagovčanin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina, noting that it should not be emphasized how important proactive transparency is for strengthening political responsibility at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also for enabling citizens to participate in decision-making processes.

“We have a glaring example at the state level, which is actually the practice, that the proposed laws, when they pass the Council of Ministers, are not actually published, and there we have a situation where the public practically has no insight into the form and in which text these laws were adopted. An example is the recently adopted Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is among 14 priorities, and we, as a public, still have no insight into the text in which it was adopted”, explained Blagovčanin, adding that such practice must be changed.

To this end, TI BiH put forward proposals for strengthening the standards of proactive transparency, which include the improvement of the legal framework that treats the area of access to information at all levels in BiH, the recognition of examples of good practice in the application of proactive transparency standards and their implementation, and the establishment of various electronic tools and open standards data for all levels of government in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The round table brought together representatives of relevant institutions from all levels of government in BiH, international institutions, civil society organizations and the media, who were presented with the importance of proactive transparency as a way for citizens to achieve a greater degree of participation in the work of the legislative and executive authorities, but also to strenghten the responsibility and integrity of the public sector as key assumptions for combating corruption.

Press rls_14.06.23_