prijava
SARAJEVO, June 23 (FENA) - Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TIBiH), on the occasion of June 23, International Whistleblower Day, organized a round table on the topic 'Defying Corruption Despite Retaliation: How to better protect whistleblowers in Bosnia and Herzegovina' today in Sarajevo.
The focus of the round table was the problems caused by the absence of laws in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, bearing in mind that this is the only level in Bosnia and Herzegovina that has not legally protected those reporting corruption.
Executive Director of TIBiH Ivana Korajlić said that by organizing the round table, this non-governmental organization is trying to re-impose the topic of protection of corruption whistleblowers in BiH.
"We still have a situation in which all levels of government have not adopted adequate laws that would provide the basis for the protection of corruption whistleblowers, and that at the levels where we have adopted laws, this protection is simply ineffective and does not provide any motivation to potential corruption whistleblowers. A particularly problematic issue is the FBiH, which has never adopted the law on the protection of corruption whistleblowers, although it was in the parliamentary procedure in 2018," said Korajlić.
She stated that at the BiH level, there is a law that provides protection only to employees in the institutions of BiH and that only a few people have received the status of a protected applicant.
"The problem is that people who have this status continue to suffer disciplinary persecution from the very institutions to which they reported corruption, they even got fired in some cases, and the competent institutions, which should provide them with protection, simply do not use possibilities and tools that are at their disposal. It is a particular problem that the judiciary does not act adequately on reports that come from whistleblowers," said Korajlić.
She stated that there has been a law in Republika Srpska since 2017, but that they had only three cases in which the complainants of corruption sought judicial protection.
"Now we can say that only the Brčko District has an adequate law and application that shows that in the previous period, four people sought protection and received the status of protected corruption informants," said Korajlić.
(FENA) A. B.
