The Draft law should not allow concealing assets of senior public officials

Prishtina, 31st May – FOL Movement organized a debate on the Law on Declaration of Assets of senior public officials, which is in the process of significant amendments and harmonization with Kosovo Criminal Code. In this debate were invited representatives from Ministry of Justice, Anti-Corruption Agency, and Agency for Personal Data Protection, representatives from civil society and media.

Petrtit Zogaj, Executive Director of FOL Movement, stated that the purpose of this debate is to discuss with the main authorities and interested parties regarding the amendments and harmonization of this law with the new Criminal Code of Kosovo
The Secretary General of Ministry of Justice Mr. Bedri Bahtiri said that the change and harmonization of laws has become known as a requirement of the Feasibility Study Report. “Our ministry has accepted the recommendations of the Anti-Corruption Agency and Agency for Personal Data Protection. We also held a debate with NGOs, so once we get a version with the proposed changes we will send to all interested parties for reviews”. According to him, regarding the Amendment of this Law, Ministry of Justice has invited international experts in order to have a law based on best practices from European countries.

Afrim Atashi, a representative of the Anti-Corruption Agency, said ACA in its working group has requested and managed to realize the publication, meanwhile, it is still debatable only the modalities about the in access published records. According to him, ACA wanted there were some other changes in the law, but they were mostly technical changes.
Mentor Hoxhaj, a representative of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data, said that the attitude of the agency he represents is against the declaration of assets of senior official’s brother and sister, while they are not against the publication of these data. However, he asked that asset declaration form should be developed jointly by the two agencies, which was opposed by ACA.
Arton Demhasi, from organization Çohu, said that the good practices we are talking abpot, are created by laws that have been suitable with the circumstances of that country. “I think that no law drafted by taking examples from EU countries will be useful, because no country in Europe has the level of corruption as we have in Kosovo,” said Demhasi.

Agron Behrami, from Anti-Corruption Agency stated that they cannot begin with the procedures without some additional data required. “We know that there are many cases in Kosovo where people live in large families, but there are also cases when people used to declare that they live alone but it proved to be untrue, after investigations we have realized that they live together in large families, so we need more data on citizens than there are published.”

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