Submitted by Providus to Partnership for Transparency
Partnership for Transparency Application Project proposal Monitoring of Anti-corruption Law Making in Latvia A. Background information The Centre for Public Policy PROVIDUS is an independent policy institute working in the areas of good governance and anti-corruption policy, criminal justice, and education policy. PROVIDUS also provides an institutional home to the public policy website www.politika.lv / www.policy.lv. PROVIDUS is a non-government, not-for-profit, non-partisan organization. Currently, PROVIDUS is engaged in policy work in the criminal justice area, promoting alternative sentencing, assisting in the creation of a probation service, undertaking policy research in areas such as pre-trial detention, sentencing policy and police abuse. In education policy, PROVIDUS recently released a broad policy report on the state of education in Latvia, focusing on challenges to management: education finance, tax policy, innovation and other issues. PROVIDUS is engaged in anti-corruption work, pushing forward proposals for campaign finance reform, designing new models of civil society monitoring for corruption prevention and presenting policy analysis on issues of lobbying, conflicts of interests and ethical behavior of public officials. The public policy website www.politika.lv, on-line since July 2001, is the first and largest on-line public policy resource in Latvia, publishing policy studies, in-depth opinion articles and other relevant resources in such policy areas as policy process, the rule of law/corruption, education and employment, human rights, social integration, civil society, information society and foreign affairs. The website has a special section “the policy community” which offers information on public policy experts, institutions, sponsorship opportunities as well as hosts interactive debates. Valts Kalnins who is a permanently employed researcher at PROVIDUS will be the director of this project. Valts Kalnins has a doctoral degree in political science and he has been working on a number of policy analysis projects in the field of anticorruption (for more details see CV in ANNEX TWO). He will launch the project, oversee its implementation and ensure that all reporting requirements are properly met. B. Concise description of the proposed activity Since the mid-1990s Latvia has been developing a host of laws and regulations to tackle various aspects of corruption. These include Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest (adopted in April, 2002), Law on Financing of Political parties (adopted in July, 1995, substantially amended in 2002 and 2004), Law on Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (adopted in April, 2002), etc. However, due to rapid changes in Latvian society (including rapidly developing awareness on ever stricter standards against corruption) and discovery of loopholes in existing legal regulations, new drafts of corruption-relevant legal acts and amendments to existing ones are being prepared. In particular, these include a draft Law on Political Parties, draft Law on Pre-election Agitation, amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest. The objective of the project is to ensure that the new legislation, when adopted, contains the most effective measures to prevent corruption. For the Law on Political Parties these include measures to prevent parties from circumventing legal restrictions, which apply to the financing of parties, to ensure adequate internal democratic procedures, which would allow grassroots members to hold the leaders of their parties accountable, and to impose sufficient requirements for the transparency of parties vis-à-vis the broader public, e.g. open general meetings of party members. For the Law on Pre-election Agitation, it is important to make sure that agitation rules, to the extent possible, prevent parties and candidates from being able to circumvent statutory limits on campaign expenditure. As for the amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest, a number of loopholes have been identified during the implementation of this law, which requires relevant amendments. To achieve this objective, PROVIDUS proposes to engage an individual to carry out the following tasks: Analyze particular relevant provisions in the above draft laws; Monitor the preparation and adoption process of these drafts in the Government and Parliament; Prepare and submit concrete proposals to the Government and Parliament; Participate in person at the deliberations over the draft legislation (this is particularly relevant and effective during deliberations in parliamentary committees); Publish articles and/or organize public debates on particular aspects of draft laws to raise public awareness and mobilize expert opinions on the issues in question.
The ultimate impact of the project will depend on two major factors: the professionalism of advocacy efforts undertaken under this project and willingness of policymakers to adopt proposals needed to tackle corruption. If both of these factors are met (one being under direct control of PROVIDUS, the other outside direct control), the immediate expected impact of the project will be adopted laws with effective anti-corruption norms where relevant. In turn, the impact of these legal norms is expected to be as follows: Grassroots members of political parties will enjoy increased legal rights to hold the leaders of parties accountable. This will open an opportunity to impose new constraints on political party leaders under risk of involvement in political corruption. Political parties will be required to act with sufficient transparency, which will allow the broader society, i.e. potential voters to make informed judgements about the operation of parties. Political parties will face limitations, which will not allow them to circumvent existing fund-rising regulations (e.g. currently political parties in Latvia are not allowed to receive donations, which exceed LVL 10,000 per annum from a single person). The Law on Pre-election Agitation will limit the opportunities of political parties to employ agitation materials (advertisement and the like) beyond the overall financial limit currently imposed on political campaigns. Public officials will face more rigorous restrictions on conflict of interests.
PROVIDUS has been engaged in similar advocacy activities previously. Existing contacts with a number of members of parliament as well as constructive co-operation with parliamentary committees in the past allow us to expect constructive interaction with these institutions also in the future. However, since this project focuses on draft laws, all of which would impose serious restraints upon government officials, members of parliament and political parties, the chances of attracting government funding for such a project are unlikely plus such funding may undermine the independence of the project implementation. Therefore it is essential to attract funds from a truly independent source such as the PTF. C. Plan of action and itemized budget At the time of drafting this project, the draft Law on Political Parties and draft amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest have been announced at the pre-cabinet stage in the executive branch. They are likely to be reviewed and adopted at the Government (Cabinet of Ministers) level this fall and then sent to the Parliament for review and final adoption. The draft Law on Pre-Election Agitation is currently under discussion at the committee level in Parliament. The duration of this project is one year from the time of project approval, which is the estimated period, during which the Parliament should complete the review of the relevant pieces of draft legislation. The plan and actual sequence of particular activities will depend on the legislative process for each particular piece of legislation. However, key activities will be the following: Analysis of draft legislation - PROVIDUS will carry out analysis of relevant norms in each of the pieces of draft legislation. PROVIDUS will formulate and send proposals for particular articles together with background information to policy makers at stages where each of the drafts is to be reviewed. Wherever possible, PROVIDUS’ representative will participate in deliberations on the draft legal acts to advocate for those solutions, which are most effective against corruption. Publish articles and organize roundtables/public seminars on particular aspects of draft laws (at least five articles and five roundtables/seminars are planned).
For these tasks, PROVIDUS will hire one local part-time employee (policy analyst) for the project duration who will monitor the legislative process, elaborate PROVIDUS’ proposals, participate in deliberations, present PROVIDUS’ proposals to the broader public. Additionally, depending on the nature of specific issues, other PROVIDUS employees will participate in the analytical work and drafting of proposals. The person will be hired through open competition, which will be publicly announced. He/she will be required to hold a university degree in law, political science or related field, have a solid understanding of the policy making process in Latvia, relevant previous work experience, and good communication skills including an ability to present arguments in a logical and convincing manner. Applicants will be requested to submit their CVs and letters of motivation. Eligible candidates will be invited for interviews. The person will be expected to spend on average 50% of his/her working time for this job for the duration of one year. The position of policy analyst will involve the following tasks: Permanent monitoring of legislative developments in the areas of PROVIDUS' interest as described in this project proposal; Review and analysis of relevant draft legal norms; Where necessary, requesting expert advice from other PROVIDUS' employees or outside experts; Elaboration and submission of legislative proposals, permanent communication with policy makers; Argumentation for the submitted proposals in writing and in presence (e.g. in parliamentary committees) where appropriate; Writing of media/internet articles to raise public awareness on the issues in question; Organization of expert round-tables and debates as appropriate.
PROVIDUS requests funding for the following budget items: salary for the policy analyst to be hired, expenses of holding five public advocacy activities (roundtables, seminars), administrative expenditure (office supplies and communication costs), overhead costs of 7%. The total amount requested from the PTF is USD 14,081. For the full budget proposal, see ANNEX ONE. PROVIDUS' own contribution will come in the form of the staff time of the project director and policy analysts who already work at PROVIDUS. PROVIDUS employs several policy analysts whose expertise covers some specific aspects of the draft legal acts and who will contribute their expertise to this project. It is expected that the project director and four analysts will contribute on average 5% percent of their time each to the project activities. D. Proposed reports PROVIDUS will prepare a substantive final report, which will include a list of all proposals submitted by PROVIDUS, data on whether these proposals have been adopted, partially adopted or rejected. This report will also include an overview of accomplished advocacy activities (contacts with relevant public institutions, participation in deliberations, articles, other public awareness-raising activities) and any other information requested by the PTF. During the project implementation, PROVIDUS will also submit quarterly reports on progress and difficulties as requested by PTF. PROVIDUS will provide a detailed financial report of the expenditure made under this project, as well as an audited financial report of PROVIDUS' total annual budget. |
