What the change of government means for the fight against corruption

The overwhelming victory of the list, which included numerous measures to fight corruption in its pre-election program, gives hope that Serbia will finally stop the decline in this area.

In this regard, Transparency Serbia highlights as particularly significant: the promises of repealing special laws adopting with mere purpose of avoiding tenders for large projects; publication of all contracts and the revision of existing ones that were contracted non-transparentl; making end to practice of naming acting directors in public enterprises; intriducing measures that would prevent misuse of public resources in the election campaign.

Newly elected MPs should adopt changes to the laws that will ensure the achievement of those goals and elect the Government that will implement those laws. Given that Serbia has become a captured state, it is even more important that the parliament ensures the accountability of all institutions that report to the National Assembly on their work, and which during the previous years consciously followed the path of avoiding conflicts with interests of the ruling party or its officials.

A special challenge in establishing a functional rule of law is that some of the key institutions that chose to do their work selectively (such as the Constitutional Court and the Public Prosecutor's Office) are not under the direct authority of the parliament.

The problem of the fight against corruption in Serbia was not primarily related to weaknesses in the laws, but to the conscious decision of representatives of institutions not to ensure the implementation of regulations, even though they could have done so.

For example, the problem of "lex specialis" and "authentic interpretations" of the laws could have been solved a long time ago, if the Constitutional Court had acted on the initiatives submitted by the TS. The extent of misuse of public resources in election campaigns would be much smaller if the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption found illegality in all cases based on the reports submitted. Finally, Serbia would not be among the leaders in Europe in terms of the level of corruption, if public prosecutions had investigated at least those cases of corruption for which evidence was presented in the stories published by investigative journalists.

Given that it is a very extensive work, it should be started as soon as possible, and the first test for new political actors will be their willingness to implement reforms transparently and with the participation of the public.