Regulating the status of Government advisors and publishing of information related to them

Transparency - Serbia (official chapter of Transparency International), emphasizes that the newest case of arresting of false Prime minister’s advisor is a good occasion for the Government to change its practice of secrecy when it comes to advisors of the president and vice-president of the Government.

According to the press release of the Ministry of Interior, one deceiver, falsely representing itself as „advisor in the cabinet of Prime-minister“ received from two citizens, 33 thousand Euro bribe to prevent an arrest. This case indicates that citizens still think that connections in executive authority can influence the work of police and prosecution, which represents a reason for concern.

Transparency – Serbia points out that these frauds could not be possible, or would at least be significantly less probable if the citizens would have insight into who advices president and vice-president of the Government and what are their responsibilities and authorities. However, not only that these data are not already available, but they are not possible to be obtained by request. TS attempted several times to receive the information from the Government about who are the advisors and what are legal basis for their engagement, and the last request of such kind, sent on 28 September 2016, remained unfortunately without answer. Related to this, it is confusing that, judging by media statements, besides special advisors that are appointed on the basis of the Law on Government, there are persons that are engaged on other basis for similar jobs.

We use this opportunity to indicate to the fact that many important questions related to the work of advisors are not legally regulated, including potential conflict of interest, because they are neither in the status of public officials nor state servants, and we invite the Government to adopt Acts that would regulate their work, besides publishing of information on advisors and their responsibilities.

Transparency Serbia

Belgrade, 21 October 2016