Convention important for protection of victims and witnesses of corruption

Transparency – Serbia welcomes the news that Civil Law Convention on Corruption of Council of Europe is finally ratified in Parliament of Serbia.

This convention is especially significant because it prescribes to signatory states to establish efficient mechanisms for reimbursing of damage to victims of corruption and for protection of public servants which had the courage to report corruption to authority organs. Considering current unsatisfactory condition of regulations in Serbia and their implementation in this areas, it is obvious that changes that should be made after ratifying Civil Law Convention won't be the least superficial. It is good to remind that monitoring of fulfilling conditions from this Convention is in GRECO (Group of states against corruption) jurisdiction and that it represents constitutive part of EU law.

Because of that it is great harm that negligible part of parliamentary debate on this Convention really referred to content of that document. In that way opportunity to introduce peoples' representatives and public now with the challenges they will be facing during its implementation failed.

At the same time we wish to remind that our country still hasn't completely proceeded by provisions of anticorruption international documents which we ratified several years ago (Convention UN, Criminal Law Convention CoE). Besides that, Transparency Serbia emphasizes that genuine will for fight against corruption is shown not only by adopting anticorruption acts but also by their implementation.

Transparency – Serbia

Press Office

Belgrade , November 6, 2007