Scattered oversight: the gaping loopholes in Czech public servant conflict of interest laws
A recent study by the pro-civic engagement charity Oživení found that of five hundred disclosure declarations lodged by Czech politicians – MPs, Senators and local officials - roughly a quarter had errors or issues worthy of further investigation. Critics suggest that the current system simply is not working and with an array of authorities across the Czech Republic tasked with examining conflict of interest declarations – some admit that they do not even have the resources to fully check what public servants have declared. In addition, there are numerous loopholes that appear to make the system highly ineffective. Dominik Jůn spoke with Vladan Brož, of Transparency International and began by asking whether he thought the current system was working.
So how does it work at the moment? How do politicians let it be known that they have potential issues in this regard?
“Politicians are obliged to declare their properties and their income, but there is a problem because they only have to declare this for the period that they are in office. So nobody knows what their property or income was before they entered this field.”
And there is also a report whereby it is suggested that the system that exists at the moment isn’t even capable of checking everybody who makes a declaration. So is that a weakness in the system?
“It certainly is because there is a lack of public oversight of the entire system. And that is a major problem.”
So what exactly can a politician hide today?
“Well, the first issue is that it is presently up to them what they decide to write on the disclosure list. And the second thing is that it is really difficult to for the public to gain accessible information. There is no centralized address or web page where the information is stored. It is only kept in the municipalities where the politician serves.”
“Actually, the current system is based on a 2007 or 2008 law and the former system was actually better because it was overseen by the courts. But then amendments were made to the law and the system started to provide fewer and fewer checks. But now we hope that there will be new amendments, which will enforce the law. For example, there is a penalty of only 60,000 crowns and we view this amount as being inadequate.”
And how important is this conflict of interest issue in the overall reputation of Czech politicians as being particularly corrupt?
“It’s really a big part of the problem even though the politicians don’t see it that way. Because if we cannot know about the conflict of interest of politicians, then we can’t have a true understanding of their decision-making or the hidden motivations behind that.”
And do you know any examples in modern Czech politics where there has been a strong suspicion of conflict of interest?
“I can give you several examples of our current government. There are a number of ministers that had to step down because they were accused of conflicts of interest. For example, the former Minister of Culture and the former ministers of Agriculture and Industry.”
And what exactly were the conflicts?
“The case of the Minister of Culture was that he didn’t declare that he violated the obligation to declare all participation in business and commercial organizations.”
Last question – is the current government taking this issue up? Is there a hope for positive reforms?
“Yes, there is still hope that an amendment to the conflict of interest laws will be included in the government’s next anti-corruption strategy.”
