TI BIH Welcomes Adoption of New Conflict of Interest Law: Appeal to House of Peoples Delegates to Unblock Reform Processes

Banja Luka, March 10, 2022 – The decision of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina to adopt a new Law on the Prevention of Conflicts of Interest in BiH Institutions is an important step in preventing corruption in this area and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European path. Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) welcomes the adoption of the Law in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly and appeals to the delegates in the House of Peoples to adopt this law in the same form in line with international standards.

TI BiH, in cooperation with international organizations, initiated the adoption of this law, which has been in the procedure since 2017. It has been adopted in the House of Representatives for the third time, but so far there has been no support in the House of Peoples or readiness to accept proposals for its substantial improvement. For the past 5 years, TI BiH has been working with the authorities at all levels to improve the legislation in this area, and the law that was adopted yesterday contains key proposals that would enable the prevention of corruption.

This primarily refers to the establishment of an independent commission that will decide on conflicts of interest instead of the previous one, which was mostly made up of parliamentarians from both houses of the BiH PA. The law expanded the definition of “close relatives” and “related persons” and finally prescribed the control of property records, which should include information on the property of family members of public office holders. Also, this law would prohibit officials from performing more than one public function, as well as from being owners of private companies that do business with the state.

Enormous progress has also been made in the article banning officials from using public functions or public resources for party and election promotion. We remind you that during the monitoring of the election campaign, TI BiH recorded over 2,500 examples of misuse of public resources and functions for the promotion of political parties and candidates.

In order to significantly improve the situation in this area, it is necessary for the authorities at all levels to adopt laws in line with international standards, because so far only the Brcko District government has done so. In the Federation of BiH, the law has not been applied since 2013. In the Republika Srpska, due to numerous vaguenesss in the law, a large number of officials perform several functions without hindrance.

Improving conflicts of interest law is one of the 14 key priorities the EU has set for BiH, but has been blocked for years as many decision-makers find themselves in conflict of interest or unwilling to deny themselves the potential for undue influence. .

Press rls_10.03.2022