Reminder of missed opportunities (on the occasion of international Anti-corruption Day )
Transparency – Serbia (official chapter of Transparency International), on the occasion of 9 December, International Anticorruption Day, estimates that during the past year numerous opportunities to improve laws, strengthen institutions and reveal and punish those responsible for corruption are missed.
In the past 12 months officials presented in several attempts activities of mass arresting of unrelated persons as evidence of proclaimed „zero tolerance“ in fight against corruption. In fact, many of arrested were suspected of criminal acts that weren’t related to corruption. At the same time, several hundreds of thousands of corruption cases in Serbia remains undiscovered every year.[1] By our opinion, that occurs due to insufficient activities and selectiveness in the acting of law enforcement organs, ineffectiveness of judiciary, and less due to incomplete legal solutions.
Transparency Serbia proposes for years amendments to Criminal Code, that would relieve of accountability those that report corruption that were victims of bribe extortion, as well as introducing of criminal act of illicit enrichment from the article 20 of the United Nation Convention Against Corruption ("a significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income."). Opportunity to introduce these efficient mechanisms for prosecuting more corruption cases was missed again in November 2016, when Criminal Code was amended. On the other hand, Prime-minister’s expose from August 2016, announced adoption of the special Law on Investigating of Property Origin. Still no draft is published nor is the concept of this act known, that is otherwise not mentioned in any of strategic documents of the Government and Parliament. Unimplemented depolitization of public sector shows that adoption of anti-corruption laws is not sufficient, which is especially visible in public enterprises, but also from large number of unannounced or unfinished public competitions for the highest posts in state administration.
Transparency – Serbia considers that there is still strong potential to make fight against corruption more successful, because citizens, business and media ask for it, and this question is important in the context of European integration that Serbia chose to follow. Prerequisite for success is strict respecting of the rule of law and role of each of the institutions, and more preparedness, primarily of the executive, for accepting of constructive and elaborated criticism and recommendations.
Transparency – Serbia, Belgrade, 8 December 2016
[1] On the basis of data from Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International for 2015/2016, it can be estimated that every year in Serbia around 347 thousands of public officials’ bribery cases occurs. For criminal acts of bribe accepting and giving 220 criminal charges are filed annually.
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