Transparency Serbia: Law Won't Limit Officials' Campaign

Transparency Serbia said on Monday, August 24, that amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Corruption will not limit officials’ campaigning, despite provisions that appear designed to do exactly that. The National Assembly opened debate on the amendments that same day, and the organization published its statement that morning, before the law had even reached the agenda.

“The amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Corruption that the National Assembly begins debating today, instead of solving this problem, create the appearance that restrictions are being introduced, and in practice they will have almost no effect,” Transparency Serbia said in its statement.

According to the organization’s assessment, the new rules take effect only once election lists are officially declared, while officials typically step up their promotional activity as soon as elections are called, sometimes months earlier. The legislature, the organization warns, has left that gap untouched.

“The legislature has left officials room to carry out various pseudo-events without any limit,” Transparency Serbia said in its statement.

The organization recalls that under its own longstanding proposal, any publication of a public official’s words, image or voice in the media should count as promotional activity, rather than requiring proof in each individual case that the activity actually influenced voter perception. Amendments filed in parliamentary procedure by MP Miroslav Petrasinovic partly adopt that definition, but the restriction remains tied exclusively to the period after election lists are declared.

Who falls outside the law’s reach

Transparency Serbia also points out that the new restrictions, even once in force, would not cover most of the executive branch. The rule applies only to officials nominated by a political party, which formally excludes the prime minister, nominated by the president of the republic, ministers, nominated by the mandate holder, and directors of public companies, who are nominated by the responsible minister or selected through a public competition.

“To make the paradox even greater, even these minimal restrictions will not be enforceable,” Transparency Serbia said in its statement.

Why ODIHR comes up

Against claims that the law is being amended to meet ODIHR recommendations, Transparency Serbia points out that the draft was sent into procedure three days before that institution delivered its opinion on the text. The draft was prepared by the Anti-Corruption Agency, which sent it to ODIHR for review in mid-May this year, with the opinion published on June 26.

For several of the most significant recommendations, the organization adds, the law still offers no solution, chiefly on limiting state institutions’ extraordinary spending ahead of elections. Transparency Serbia estimates that emergency social assistance payouts ahead of the announced parliamentary elections could come close to one billion euros, and notes that, according to ODIHR reports, officials’ promotional activity without any real purpose is one of the elements blurring the line between party and state.

“Promotional activities by public officials that serve no real purpose, but instead boost their parties’ ratings,” Transparency Serbia said in its statement.

The organization also singled out the procedure through which the law reached lawmakers. The parliamentary Justice and Public Administration Committee held four public hearings on the proposal over the previous week, the last one on Friday, August 21. An hour after that hearing ended, the law entered parliamentary procedure unchanged, and by Monday it was already on the National Assembly’s agenda.

The process of amending this law was launched by the Ministry of Justice more than three years ago, to bring it in line with recommendations from the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO). This law has been covered before, when the debate centered on widening the definition of which officials it covers, and Transparency Serbia submitted amendments to parliamentary groups then as well.

At the time the statement was published, the law was on the National Assembly’s agenda, and how the debate proceeds, including whether it is adopted, remains open in the coming days.