Commission Report 2002 (Slovakia)

Anti-Corruption measures

Surveys indicate that corruption remains cause for serious concern in Slovakia.

In the last Regular Report, the Commission acknowledged the anti-corruption efforts of the Slovak Government but indicated that a number of important measures had not yet been undertaken and should not be further delayed. In this reporting period, additional legislative steps and individual measures have been carried out to tackle this issue.

Implementation of the National Programme for the Fight against Corruption has continued. According to the Government, three quarter of the 1 500 concrete actions have been carried out or addressed to a large extent. Since many of the proposed actions were criticised as being too vague, a number of tasks were reformulated in co-operation with the respective ministries. The co-ordination of measures amongst the relevant ministries and bodies concerned has continued, however, to be weak.

Further progress has been achieved on increasing transparency in the field of public procurement, public enterprises, and party financing.

In November 2001, the Parliament passed an amendment to the Public Procurement Act, which is designed to further limit the scope for corruption in the handling of public finances. In addition, an ``Analysis of and Proposal for Systemic Measures to Increase Transparency in Public Procurement'' was approved by the Government.

In July 2002, the Slovak Parliament adopted an amendment to the Act on Public Enterprises, imposing stricter obligations on management. Inter alia, managers have to make a property declaration, and their family members are not entitled to be involved in business activities linked to the public enterprise.

In March 2002, the Civil Service Office has been set up, being mainly responsible for the implementation of the Civil Service Act and playing an important role in the fight against corruption within the civil service.

As regards the financing of political parties, the Government assigned to the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy the task of drawing up a reform proposal, comprising, inter alia, measures to define an appropriate regulation for membership fees, tax breaks for donors and for efficient supervision of party financing.

Progress has been made on implementing the Law on Free Access to Information, thus contributing to increased transparency within the administration and reinforcing the fight against corruption (see above under the executive).

Codes of Ethics, respectively for judges, civil servants, employees in the public administration, and elected representatives of self-government units were adopted.

The measures taken to reform the judicial system, reported on above, represent a further positive step in the fight against corruption.

Strict enforcement of the aforementioned measures is necessary to ensure that the provisions have a positive impact. Meanwhile, plans to create the function of a special prosecutor for combating corruption and organised crime have been abandoned. Instead, it was decided to reinforce the existing structure of the prosecution service to enable it to fight against corruption. As a consequence the General Prosecutor's Office has drawn up a plan for the reorganisation of this office from January 2003.

The 2001 Regular Report referred to the case of the former Head of the Department of the Government Office for European Integration, responsible for Phare co-ordination. The Slovak police has confirmed the assessment of the Slovak Supreme Audit Office that there was no evidence of fraud or misuse of funds. The Government has issued a report, acknowledging institutional weaknesses and insufficiencies in the management of pre-accession funds. The report shows, at the same time, a notable increase in the awareness and commitment of the Slovak authorities as regards the importance of sound financial management in the context of preparations for accession. This is, for instance, reflected in the new allocation of responsibilities and resources and new procedures.

There are indications that awareness of the dangers of corruption among the population are increasing. According to the Government, the number of people feeling compelled to pay bribes has further decreased. This tendency, however, is not uniform across all sectors. The perception remains that corruption continues to be widespread in Slovakia, and that levels of tolerance in this regard are high. The most affected areas appear to be the health care sector, education, police and judiciary, whereas positive trends can be seen in areas like customs and taxation. Inadequate salaries, cumbersome and formalistic procedural rules, lack of internal control, and lack of technical support all contribute to creating a climate conducive to corruption. In 2001, 51 people (as compared to 197 in 2000), were convicted of corruption.

Despite a high degree of alignment of legislation, corporate crime is a specific problem and the business climate is characterised by legal uncertainty attributable to the still weak functioning of the judiciary - both in terms of technical capacity and the prevalence of corruption - and a certain instability of the legal framework. Bankruptcy procedures, despite a recent amendment to the Bankruptcy Act, are considered by the business community to be a particularly weak element of the Slovak corporate system. More effective measures against corrupt practices are required if the needed improvements to the business environment are to be realised.

In a regrettable development, in May 2002 the Parliament rejected a proposed new Law on Conflict of Interest, which would have extended, inter alia, the scope of conflict-of-interest legislation to a broader circle of public officials and judges, as well as to prosecutors, heads of district governments and regional offices, representatives of local governments, Parliamentarians, managers of state-run companies and National Property Fund members. Further improvements in this important area, including asset monitoring, are necessary to remedy the current shortcomings.

The Civil Code, amended in June 2002, has created the legal conditions for ratifying the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption. Slovakia is a party to the Council of Europe Convention on Money Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation from the Proceeds from Crime and to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, as well as to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. It has signed but not ratified the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption. Slovakia continues to participate actively in the monitoring of anti-corruption measures adopted by the OECD Working Group on bribery in international commercial transactions, and participates in the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption, GRECO (see also Chapter 24 - co-operation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs).

A GRECO evaluation mission visited Slovakia in September 2000. Several of the recommendations resulting from this expert mission have in the meantime been implemented or are in the process of being implemented, notably the reform of the judiciary, of the licensing system and of the investigation procedures, raising awareness about corruption among the population and media and extending the powers of the Supreme Audit Office. Slovakia is strongly encouraged to continue to follow up these recommendations.

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