prijava
SARAJEVO, September 1 (FENA) - The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), which monitors member states' compliance with the Council of Europe's anti-corruption instruments, published an interim report on the assessment of the measures taken by the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to implement recommendations related to the prevention of corruption among members of parliament, judges and prosecutors.
As stated in the report, Bosnia and Herzegovina took only limited measures in order to fulfill the unimplemented recommendations from the Fourth Round of Evaluation. None of the 15 recommendations from the Report were implemented, and eight recommendations were partially implemented, while seven remained unimplemented.
As for the members of parliament, there were no new moves in the direction of strengthening the integrity system. There are still no rules in place for MPs on their interactions with third parties, and MPs still do not have the opportunity to be consulted or trained on anti-corruption.
"No new information was submitted regarding reports on monitoring the practical application of the Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians. A stalemate was also recorded on the issue of the new Law on Conflict of Interest, which is no longer subject to consideration," GRECO underlines.
They also say that no credible and independent mechanism has been established to prevent and resolve issues of conflict of interest or to ensure verification of declarations of assets made by members of parliament at the state level.
When it comes to judges and prosecutors, the amendments to the Law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) have now been forwarded to the Parliament, but have not yet been adopted, and separate judicial and prosecutorial departments and subcommittees have not yet been established within the structures of the HJPC.
The criteria for evaluating the work of judges and prosecutors from 2018 have now been repealed, and the new criteria formed in order to overcome this shortcoming are not comprehensive enough in terms of qualitative evaluation.
There are still no guarantees that the executive and legislative branches will not interfere during the evaluations, and GRECO also states that no budget and staffing analysis related to backlog problems has been conducted.
Nevertheless, promising initial steps have been taken toward the introduction of confidential counseling for the holders of judicial functions, and the Communication Strategy has been adopted, but it has not yet materialized.
Bearing in mind that since the Second Compliance Report there has been no general progress in the implementation of GRECO recommendations, this report concludes that the very low level of compliance with the recommendations is still overall unsatisfactory in the sense of the revised Article 31, paragraph 8.3. Rules of Procedure.
GRECO, therefore, decided to apply Article 32 related to members who are found not to act in accordance with the recommendations from the Evaluation Report, but also to request the head of the BiH delegation to submit a report on progress in the implementation of unresolved recommendations as soon as possible, and no later than 31 December 2022.
The chairman was invited to deliver a letter to the head of the BiH delegation that would draw his attention to the non-compliance with the relevant recommendations and express the need to take decisive steps as soon as possible toward achieving tangible progress in the fight against corruption.
(FENA) S. R.
