Venice Commission confirms TI BiH warnings: Law on conflict of interest needs to be substantially improved

Banja Luka, 8. July 2021 – Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) calls on the Ministry of Justice of BiH to substantially improve the Law on Conflict of Interest because the Venice Commission confirmed all the shortcomings that TI BiH pointed out in February this .

The ministry then rejected all key proposals that would lead to the improvement of the law in this area and did not give up its intention to reverse the existing law and establish even lower standards than those that exist now.

In the end, the Venice Commission pointed out all the shortcomings of the law that was sent to the procedure by the Ministry of Justice of BiH, which TI BiH also pointed out publicly and through the “eConsultation” platform.

In the published opinion, the commission proposes to expand the definition of “close relatives” and “related persons” as well as to include information on the property of family members in the property records of officials.

Also, the Venice Commission confirmed that the law is deficient in the part concerning the work of the Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest, where it proposes to ensure the independence of the commission from the political influence of the ruling majority and abandon the ethnic principle of decision-making. We remind you that the Ministry proposed that the Commission consists of 10 members, for whom conditions are not provided that would not come from political parties, and it is envisaged that decisions of importance in the first round of decision-making are made unanimously.

The opinion especially points out that the appointed officials must be prevented from performing double functions, as well as from being owners or directors of private companies that do business with institutions at lower levels of government, which TI BiH specifically pointed out.

-Zthe ban on parallel employment or business activities for appointed officials should be almost absolute and include a ban on state-level officials from running companies in business with the entity or cantonal administration, as well as a ban on running companies that benefit from public money, stated in the opinion of the Venice Commission.

All this was proposed by TI BiH in February this year, and this whole situation could have been avoided if a solution had been adopted, which has been in the parliamentary procedure for years and for which most international organizations gave a positive opinion, and which was supported by the House of Representatives last year. PS BiH.

However, TI BiH points out that there is a great risk that the legislators will use the opinion of the Venice Commission in the part in which it requests separate treatment of elected and appointed officials to weaken the mechanisms for preventing conflicts of interest, primarily related to members of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly. in terms of incompatibility and sanctions. BiH has long been described as a captive state, where decisions at the highest level are made on the basis of individual interests, and elected officials directly influence the most important decisions in the country and appoint key people to BiH institutions. sanctions have had devastating effects on already almost non-existent mechanisms for preventing conflicts of interest.

Press rls-08.07.2021