Anti-Corruption Institutional Development in Bugaria
-
Upload
-mcic -
Category
Presentations & Public Speaking
-
view
33 -
download
1
description
Transcript of Anti-Corruption Institutional Development in Bugaria
Anti-corruption institutional
developments in Bulgaria:
good and bad practices Workshop: 14-16 October, Mavrovo
Anti-corruption institutional infrastructure
• Bulgaria lacks a common central institution to fight
corruption(although the EC , including in its latest report under
the CVM and the first EU Anticorruption Report, has stated the
need for the establishment of “independent institution to focus
efforts, make proposals and drive action against corruption”)
• There are • several specialised bodies mandated to drive the country`s
anticorruption agenda within legislative, executive and judiciary
• a number of institutions whose activities may have a strong
anticorruption potential(National Revenue Agency, Custom Agency,
National Ombudsman and others)
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Parliament • Parliamentary Commission on Fighting Corruption and
Conflict of Interest (permanent committee)
• consists of three MPs per party group
• accepts and registers the declarations under the Conflict of Interest
Prevention and Ascertainment Act and, if requested, provides information
to the Commission for Prevention and Ascertainment of Conflict of Interest
• reviews, may comment and propose amendments to draft legislation,
assigned by Chairman of the Parliament
• in cases of irregularities and crime, forwards all documentation to the
respective judicial authorities
• In the 42nd Parliament - several comments/recommendations
with regard to draft legislation but only ten commission
meetings and two administrative violation reports under the
Conflict of Interest Prevention and Ascertainment Act and
provided
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Judiciary
• Standing Committee on Professional Ethics and Prevention of
Corruption in the Judiciary with the Supreme Judicial Council
to implement responsible
• to perform inspections on specific signals about corruption and
complaints, notify competent authorities and inform the SJC about
the results
• to analyse the information on the existence of corruption practices
in the judiciary
• to develop and propose for approval by the SJC specific measures
for the prevention and countering corruption in the judiciary
• for the implementation of the Code of Ethical Behaviour of
Bulgarian Magistrates as well the Strategy for Preventing and
Combating Corruption in the Judiciary
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Judiciary(continued)
• Cooperation with the Civil Council to the SJC and other anticorruption
structures within state authorities, including the Ombudsman
• Information with regard to registered signals and complaints is largely
available and consistently reported by the Committee
• Despite the large number of complaints, most of which general in
nature, for the period of four years (2010-2013) there is not a single
registered complaint containing concrete data of corruption, while the
signals concerning controversial practices are only 23 ().
• Standing Committee on Disciplinary Proceedings with the Supreme
Judicial Council
• responsible for disciplinary infringement and disciplinary sanctions(incl. for
corruption-related conduct) to judges, prosecutors and investigators
• no publicly available statistics for disciplinary proceedings against
magistrates on corruption-related grounds
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Executive • Commission for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption
with the Council of Ministers (CPCC),since 2006, chaired by the
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, mandated to
• analyse corruption and conflict of interests and propose policies
• propose to the Council of Ministers the anticorruption priorities of
the government on an annual basis
• analyse regulatory acts, potentially vulnerable to corruption and
propose amendments
• prepare strategic documents and coordinating their
implementation
• develop measures for more effective preventive mechanisms
against corruption and conflict of interests in the decision making
process.
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the Executive(continued)
• Positive development - establishment of 28 regional councils on
corruption that often include representatives from local
government, territorial structures, the judiciary, various
ministries, civil society and the business community
• Failures
• CPCC lacks the capacity to effectively perform its functions
• activities of CPCC are difficult to assess, annual reports are
published inconsistently( the last publicly available report is for
2011, but it cannot be accessed, similar to the case with the 2010
report)
• lack of coordination in the regional councils(separate action plans
and produced implementation reports, inconsistencies in reporting
and limited information)
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Executive(continued)
• The exotic project BORKOR - a specialised anti-corruption
body, established at the Council of Ministers in 2010 to assess,
plan and develop preventive anticorruption measures through
highly-technological instrument(software) to identify vulnerable
environment conductive to crime
• spent BGN 10.3 million in a three-year period (2011-2013)
• continuous lack of results and clarity in its mission statement – critics from
civil society and the media
• in January 2013 - first interim report , which identified corruption risks,
and listed numbers of vulnerable areas without naming them
• exotic ideas, launched in the beginning of 2014 (i.e. intention to compel all
politicians and high-ranking civil servants to declare their personal
relationships)
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Executive(continued)
• Possible solutions
• BORKOR to become a strong institution, having the necessary
capacity to coordinate the fight against corruption and having
authority to assess the plans of other institutions, make a risk
assessment of declarations on conflict of interest and/or act as an
independent monitoring body
• BORKOR to focus primarily on developing the necessary instruments
for fighting corruption and monitoring anti-corruption progress and
the CPCC to be responsible for their implementation
• BORKOR to be abolished and its responsibilities to be transferred to
the CPCC
Specialised anti-corruption bodies within the
Executive(continued)
• Inspectorates - in all ministries, state agencies and other
administrative bodies of the central government, to prevent and
eliminate distortions in the functioning of the administration (as
of 2012 in total 38 administrative bodies, incl. CoM - GI)
• subordinated to the respective authority operate according to
internal rules approved by the relevant body of the executive
power
• Responsabilities
• perform check-ups of structures, activities and processes in the
administration
• assess the corruption risk and propose measures to limit it
• ensure compliance with regulations and laws, including the Conflict of
Interest Prevention and Ascertainment Act
• propose disciplinary proceedings for violations of official duties
Commission for Prevention and Ascertainment of
Conflicts of Interest
• Еstablished in 2010(became operational in 2011)
• to implement the amended Law on the Prevention and Ascertainment of
Conflicts of Interest
• composed of five members - the Parliament elects three of the members,
including the chairperson, one is appointed by the President and one by the
Prime Minister.
• Rules on both conflicts of interest and incompatibilities, cannot
act upon anonymous signals
• Establishment of conflict of interest
• primarily administrative penalties, which range from BGN 1000 to BGN
20,000
• can serve as a ground for dismissal from pubic office as well. The names of
the persons found to be in conflict of interest are displayed on the web site
of the respective institution, in which they hold office
Commission for Prevention and Ascertainment of
Conflicts of Interest(continued)
• Most of the cases decided with a sanction have involved mainly low-
profile public officials and had to do with conflicts of interests at local
and regional level (e.g. mayors)
• The number of investigations regarding top-ranking politicians and/or
administrators is very limited, such cases are moving particularly slow
into their final decisions, with too little publicly available information(
the first EU Anticorruption Report found indications of an arbitrary
and formalistic approach and reasonably assessed that the Commission
has not yet succeeded in acting systematically and independently to
prevent or uncover risks of political corruption)
• The former Chair of the Commission Philippe Zlatanov, was charged
with criminal breach and violation of his duties, which has caused
adverse effects on the Committee headed by him and was found guilty
and sentenced by Sofia City Court (SCC) as a first instance to 3 ½ years
imprisonment
Commission for Prevention and Ascertainment of
Conflicts of Interest (continued)
• Proposed changes to the law by the end of 2013
• which can be defined as positive
• widening the circle of persons holding public office for whom the rules
of Law are applicable
• Introducing procedure for removing a person holding public office in
the presence of private interest + opportunity for the person holding
public office on suspicion of conflict of interest to approach directly
the Commission, which is required to adopt an opinion within 14 – days
• expanding the Commission's rights to obtain information from third
institutions including disclosure of bank secrecy etc.
• which can be defined as negative
• no changes in quota system, no grounds for early termination of powers
of the members of the Commission who do not meet the post
requirements
• sharp reductions in the penalties provided for violations of the law
Criminal justice against corruption
• No specialised anticorruption courts
• In 2010 - legislative amendments providing for the establishment of a
specialized criminal court with a jurisdiction to examine organized
criminal group cases and a specialised court of appeal acting as a court
of second instance and a specialised prosecutor’s office of appeal and a
specialised prosecutor’s office, with an investigation department
• The cases of corruption may fall within the jurisdiction of the
specialized criminal court in two situations: either when a case of
corruption related offence is merged with other cases one of which is
under the jurisdiction of the specialized criminal court, or when the
indictment is for two or more offenses related to each other and one of
them is within the jurisdiction of the specialized criminal court;
however, there is no evidence of such cases and best practices in this
area so far
Еnforcing Criminal law in cases of corruption
• Bulgarian criminal law - in compliance with the main international
standards in the field of anti-corruption( the catalogue of criminal
offences and their corresponding sanctions satisfy the requirements of
the major international treaties to which Bulgaria is a party)
• The main forms of corruption behaviour are incriminated and the
sanctions are relatively high
• Most of the corruption-related offences are grave crimes (punished by
more than five years of imprisonment), which means that they can be
investigated through special intelligence means
• Ineffective enforcement - investigation of the crimes at the pre-trial
stage and the subsequent trial proceedings, the result - low number of
cases ending with conviction, lenient sanctions and no successfully
completed high-profile cases
Number of bribery cases registered and solved by the
police (2006-2012)
106
121
112
155 150
154
137
87
77 81
115 113 106
84
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Crimes registered by the police during the year Solved cases out of all crimes registered by the police during the same year
Outcome of pre-trial proceedings for
corruption cases (2010-2012)
226 217
184
261
325
346
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
2010 2011 2012
Cases brought to court
Discontinued pre-trial proceedings
Trend (cases brought to court)
Trend (discontinued pre-trial proceedings)
Share of offenders sentenced to probation for
bribery (2004-2012)
0,00
4,62
30,49
46,74
60,00 58,14 58,96
42,20
29,06
0,00
10,00
20,00
30,00
40,00
50,00
60,00
70,00
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Share of offenders sentenced to probation (per cent)
Duration of imprisonment imposed for bribery (2004-
2012)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Up to 6 months From 6 months to 1 year From 1 to 3 years From 3 to 5 years
From 5 to 10 years From 10 to 15 years From 15 to 20 years From 20 to 30 years
Share of suspended prison sentences (2004-2012)
54,29
67,16
39,02 39,78 37,50
35,38 37,12
53,91
59,06
35,32 34,41 33,04 29,60 29,89 30,65
35,21
40,12 42,30
0,00
10,00
20,00
30,00
40,00
50,00
60,00
70,00
80,00
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Share of suspended sentences (bribery) Share of suspended sentences (all crimes)
Outcome of criminal cases for bribery (2004-2012)
16
22
50
56
50
84 83
53 52
19
45
32
37
30
46 49
62
75
4 5
12 14 14
8 6 7
3 1 0 0 1 2 1 0
2 1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Effective sentences Suspended sentences Acquittals Discontinued proceedings