Unacceptable secrecy of assets declarations

Sarajevo, August 4, 2011. – Transparency International BiH (TI BiH) strongly condemns the decision of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data in BiH, which prohibits public disclosure of information about the property status of elected and appointed officials, regarding it as a totally unacceptable, as a way to directly threaten the public interest. Given the fact that, according to the positive legal regulations, the content of the assets declarations was not a subject to inspection state institutions, the decision to ban the publication of the assets declarations would be virtually impossible for the public, media and NGOs to continue the practice of monitoring the veracity of the assets declarations. In this way, the purpose of existence of such institutions of assets declarations would be completely stultified.

Such a move should be viewed in a wider context, as continuous attempts to undermine the existing legal solutions that promote the principles of accountability and transparency in the functioning of public institutions.

TI BiH invites all relevant institutions, in particular the Central Election Commission and the Parliamentary Assembly, to take appropriate measures to ensure the protection of public interest, which is threatened by this decision. For its part, TI BiH will continue to monitor the further proceedings of relevant institutions and accordingly take all available measures to ensure the protection of institution disclosure of assets declarations as generally accepted in democratic countries and as very important to control and promote the principle of accountability of public officials.