The Ministry of Justice of BiH is trying to legalize the conflict of interest, the new law allows BiH MPs to perform dual functions

Banja Luka, November 14, 2022 – Banja Luka, November 14, 2022 – The Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina is trying with the new Law on Conflict of Interest, which has been submitted for consultation, to practically legalize the performance of dual functions and to adopt a solution that is worse than the existing one. Transparency International in BiH (TI BIH) warns that the proposed law exempts all elected MPs and delegates in the BiH Parliament from the restrictions related to the performance of dual functions in the management of public companies, and the proposal is that they will no longer be prohibited from having private companies that operate with the state and to sit in the management of associations and foundations financed from the budget.

It is absurd that such a proposal, which will certainly worsen the state of corruption in BiH, is trying to be adopted under the guise of meeting the requirements of the European Union for obtaining candidate status, which states that, as part of the fight against corruption, laws on preventing conflicts of interest at all levels must be improved.

In addition to proposing the abolition of numerous restrictions on elected officials, even fewer restrictions than existing ones are being introduced. According to the previous law, all holders of public offices were prohibited from being the head of associations or foundations that are financed from the budget of any level of government, and now the Ministry of Justice proposes that only financing of such associations from the BiH level is considered a conflict of interest. It is a big step back because officials in state institutions can exercise their influence for personal interests and at lower levels of government.

An additional problem with the proposed law is that it narrows the concept of close relatives compared to the existing law and narrowly treats the concept of related persons with formulations that will be difficult to prove. The proposed solution, apart from the fact that it is largely worse than the existing one, brings almost no improvements, and low fines remain in case of violation of the provisions of the law, which will not achieve their purpose.

A special problem is that the new law does not guarantee the independence of the Commission for deciding on conflicts of interest, and it introduces a complicated procedure for appointing members of the Commission as well as the method of determining conflicts of interest. In some cases, when a conflict of interest is determined, the person who is superior to the official is even given the opportunity to impose measures, which will lead to a completely uneven practice.

TI BIH submitted comments on the controversial provisions of the proposed law to the Ministry of Justice and requests its withdrawal from the procedure because numerous provisions, in addition to establishing lower standards than the existing ones, further complicate the process of determining conflicts of interest. Of particular concern is the fact that by submitting to the procedure of such a law, an attempt is made to fulfill the EU condition for obtaining candidate status.

TI BIH reminds that the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest, which is in line with international standards, has already been adopted in the House of Representatives and subsequently blocked in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament. For this reason, the attempts of the Ministry of Justice to delay the procedure by persistently proposing solutions that are worse than the existing ones and make meaningless the essence of reforms that should improve the mechanisms of the fight against corruption, are inadmissible.

Press rls_14.11.22_