KAS and the civil sector on the findings of the EC regarding the fight against corruption: It must be better, but there is no political will

More must be done to ensure the integrity, impartiality and responsibility of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, but also to improve its measurable results and public trust, the European Commission (EC) said.

"Despite the Agency's proactive approach to investigate and impose penalties for violations of the Law on Prevention of Corruption in the Area of ​​Property Reports and Threats to the Public Interest, there is still a significant number of unsolved cases from previous years, especially concerning high-profile cases," the document, which was presented two days ago, states.

The day after the publication of the report, the agency published a dozen decisions in which no violation of the law was found, among which about half refer to the president of the state Milo Đukanović.

According to the decisions, he did not violate the law either in the case of the property in Kočani, or when his government granted a concession to a company co-owned by his son Blaž Đukanović, but not during two trips at the expense Duško Knežević - Dubai and Saint Tropez. In the last case, the Agency also cleared the MP of suspicion Branimir Gvozdenović.

Decisions in most of these cases were awaited for about a year, and the Agency has not yet published decisions regarding Djukanović's collection of watches and information from the "Pandora Papers".

The agency made a decision yesterday that neither the prime minister Dritan Abazovic he did not violate the Law by staying in Dubai and Abu Dhabi at the end of last year.

"With this decision, the Agency actually confirmed the latest findings of the EC report regarding the integrity and bias in its work and once again promoted itself as an obstacle to the real fight against corruption at a high level," said the director of the MANS Research Center. Dejan Milovac.

Deciding on the initiatives of MANS, the Agency, he adds, fully accepted the interpretations of Đukanović and Abazović that they did not go to Dubai on an official occasion, but as individuals, and that the gift in the form of paid trips was not "in connection with the performance of a public function".

"It is particularly interesting that these decisions, for which we have been waiting for months, and in the case of Đukanović, years, come a day after the publication of the European Commission's report, which we appreciate as an attempt to recognize the shameful practice we are witnessing in that document," says Milovac, adding that "the subjugation of ASK is a consequence of a lack of political will."

Đurnić: An alibi for the behavior of officials

Public policy researcher at the Institute of Alternatives (IA) Ana Đurnić she told "Vijesti" that yesterday's decisions of the Agency regarding the travel of public officials are another reminder that the laws must be changed, but also that the valid ones are not applied correctly.

"Namely, experts of the Council of Europe presented a recent analysis of the Law on Prevention of Corruption, in which they state that the valid definition of a gift 'clearly includes hospitality - invitation to cultural or sports events, provision of accommodation, etc.)', and that during the mission, 'representatives of the Agency admitted that public officials occasionally received hospitality such as invitations from the hosts of events attended by public officials, but that in practice they never report hospitality,'" she states.

Đurnić added that the experts recommend the Agency to "continue awareness-raising activities and promote the message among public officials that gifts are not only material objects, but also services provided as part of hospitality."

"The agency, however, not only does not promote this message, but quite the opposite - it creates an alibi for future similar behavior of public officials, claiming not only that such gifts are not illegal, but that officials are not even obliged to report them," says the IA representative.

At first glance, the attitude of the European Commission towards the Agency is, in her opinion, getting "softer" every year.

"However, if we carefully read the Report, we see that the assessment that 'a continuous effort is necessary to solve the challenges concerning the Agency's prioritization, its selective action and the quality of its decisions', only changes its place in the Report, but does not disappear", Đurnić points out.

She believes that the essence of this year is in the recommendations - the EC, among other things, says that it is necessary to revise the legal framework and strengthen institutional capacities in order to solve the problems identified in connection with the application of legislation, both in the preventive and in the repressive part of the fight against corruption.

Đurnić believes that the EC itself has subtly signaled that the primary legal framework for the prevention of corruption - the Law on the Prevention of Corruption - has been overcome and that its application, even when it is positively evaluated, does not deliver results. He interprets this as an incentive to intensify the work on amendments to the Law, the amendments of which are planned in the EU Accession Program of Montenegro for 2023.

The EC indicates "that more must be done to ensure the integrity, impartiality and responsibility of this institution, and to deliver measurable results, in accordance with the recommendations of the expert mission from 2021".

"This is a good moment to remind that specifically that, but also other reports of TAIEX experts, not even a year later, are not publicly available, although the Institute of Alternatives already fought for the publication of these types of documents before the Administrative Court in 2017," warned Đurnić.

Perović: An important step forward in efficiency

The EC's report on progress states that with serious reform interventions and dedicated actions to protect the public interest, we have made a significant step forward in efficiency, that our efforts are appreciated and that a positive trend in work is noticeable, according to the comments of the director of the Agency. Jelena Perović.

"The statements from the report that more must be done to ensure integrity, impartiality and responsibility, we perceive, on the one hand, as an understanding of our position and a kind of support to persevere in protecting the status of an independent body, and on the other, as a message to the entire community. If the prevention of corruption is based on the performance of only one institution, then such engagement is doomed to limited scope," said Perović.

Perović adds that the Agency realizes that there is significant room for its growth.

Commenting on the allegations that the results of the Agency, as well as the State Audit Institution, are limited in the part of controlling party financing, the institution headed by Perović told "Vijesta" that the Agency noted a number of shortcomings and ambiguities in the legislative framework, which do not correspond to the situation on the ground and open opportunities for certain abuses. "We interpret the statements from the EC report as recognition of those facts and room for upgrading the electoral legislation," the answer states.

It is added that the Agency, in cooperation with SE experts, analyzed legal texts and defined 46 recommendations for their amendment. Of that number, only 16 were accepted. They add that at the end of June last year, the Agency sent the then President of the Assembly the Initiative for amending and supplementing the Law on Misdemeanors under urgent procedure. To date, this initiative has not borne fruit, although the competent Anti-corruption Committee is aware of it, the Agency points out.

The EC praised the Agency's results in many areas, including the verification of property records and detailed controls, the number of initiated procedures, etc.