As part of the Seminar “Knowledge against corruption”, organized by the Centre for Peace and Development of Democracy, Ms Verica Barac, President of the Council, gave a lecture. For the abridged version see below. 

The Anti-Corruption Council is one of the transitional institutions established in Serbia after the changes of October 2000. At the time, the newly elected authorities recognized several problems which needed to be solved urgently, and established three transitional institutions to tackle these problems until the establishment of the stronger institutions of a new democratic state. Besides the Council, two more bodies were founded, namely, the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, and the Social-Economic Council of the Government of Serbia.

The Government of Serbia established the Anti-Corruption Council, on the initiative of the Minister of Finance, Mr. Bozidar Djelic, and appointed eleven members. After five years, the only transitional institution still working is the Anti-Corruption Council. Nowadays, the Council has ten members, and it won its autonomy in the election of new members, appointed by the Government on the proposal of the Council, thus eliminating the pressure on the work of the Council trough the election of new members.

The President of the Council is elected by the other members. The Council has gone trough two phases. For the first year and a half the Council was assisted by the Ministry of Finance in terms of technical-administrative assistance, during which time the Council recommended the adoption of the basic anticorruption laws to the Government: Law on Public Procurement, Law on Financing of Political Parties, Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest, Law on Free Access to the Information. All of these laws were, in the meantime, and with huge delays and amendments to the draft proposals, adopted. Their implementation, however, has encountered difficulties, due to the inadequacy of the laws themselves, as well as due to the problems regarding the functioning of the institutions in charge of their implementation. Several members of the Council (the first President Mr. Slobodan Beljanski, the Vice – President Mr. Predrag Jovanovic, Mr. Cedomir Cupic, Nikola Milosevic), left the Council in that period, justifying their decision with the non-cooperation of the Government, i.e. lack of the political will to fight the corruption in Serbia (with the exception of Mr. Predrag Jovanovic, who left the Council after he had been nominated Director of the Public Procurement Office).

The second phase in the work of the Council began after the assassination of the Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, when, the Government appointed three new members, at the suggestion of the members of the Council. In the second phase of its work, the Council undertook more serious investigations regarding corruption phenomena, first of all, cases of the large scale corruption, which could not be narrowed to kickbacks and bribery, but rooted from the non-functional relationship between the judiciary, legislative and executive power. In Serbia, problems almost always emerge due to the domination of the executive power over the judiciary and legislative power, in other words the corruption in its primary sense – the corruption of the authorities.

The Council tried to give answer to various problems, namely the issues of sugar smuggle, where public interest was completely ignored and a very lucrative industry was destroyed, only to allow personal gain to certain individuals close to the authorities. Also, the Council tackled the issue of the bankruptcy of the company ‘’Sartid’’ and its illegal court procedure. During 2003, the Council elaborated several reports on large scale corruption for the Government, and recommended necessary actions in order to prevent any further cases of the ‘’grand’’ corruption, i.e. enable legal and existential safety. In the reports on sugar export, privatization, bankruptcy of ‘’Sartid’’, ‘’Jugoremedija’’, ‘’Veterinarski Zavod’’, ‘’National Savings Bank’’, ‘’Mobtel’’, the Council demonstrated the lack of balance between the executive and legislative power, namely that the institutions were insecure and subject to the executive power, that the laws were adopted to enable personal gain of privileged individuals related to the authorities, while the anti-corruption laws adopted in the course of the past four years were applied with difficulties.

On the other hand, the administration of justice, both due to the pressure of the executive power, and the internal incapability to reform, totally paralyzes the fight against the corruption. The abundance of the laws in the past two years (over 200 adopted laws), which are represented as a personal success of the current authorities promotes the creation of chaos, and increase legal insecurity. Serbia has not yet won its parliamentary democracy. The National Assembly is just a place to trade in party interest. The parties refuse to speak of the constitutional assembly, although it was one of the promises made in 5 October 2000. Instead, the leading coalition tries to adopt the constitution trough the deals among the parliamentary parties, regardless of the support these parties have among the citizens. 

Such a condition led to legal insecurity in Serbia. The rights of the private owners, minority shareholders, of ‘’Jugoremedija’’, ‘’Keramika’’, and other companies in Serbia are being violated in the name of the privatization. The Council tackled the issue of the corruption in the privatization process, because it felt that it was a key process of the democratic transition in Serbia, because violation of laws and contracts in privatization procedures could not lead to a democratic change. The Council’s reports on privatization in Serbia show that no government so far had any concept of the sustained development in Serbia, with the appropriate privatization procedure, and that the whole process was only a cover up campaign which enabled money laundry, as well as the real estate and illegal technology purchase. 

The Council analyzed these problems in its reports, and gave its recommendations to the Government. All reports of the Council have been made public. The Council deems that rising of the public awareness regarding the corruption problem represents one of its most important tasks. And while Council’s activities helped clarifying the a.m. problems, the Government mainly ignored them, or attacked the members of the Council in public. The Government never disputed any of the facts written in the reports of the Council, but its members have been discredited, and called ‘’cry-babies’’. Even when the Government reacted in accordance with the findings of the Council, like in ‘’Mobtel’’ case, it was not to fight the corruption, but to protect its political positions.