Anticorruption package doesn't go far enough

Pro-transparency lobbies welcomed the government's plan to send an anticorruption legislation package to Parliament last week, but they also criticized the ruling coalition for doing little in areas unaffected by the new legislation. "The initiative has long been expected, but the government has still presented few details," said Grażyna Kopińska, the director of the anticorruption program at the Stefan Batory Foundation. "It gives an impression that the government is trying to show action in the run-up to the upcoming local elections." The package aims to sever the close relationship between bribers and those who are bribed by introducing the possibility to reduce or even totally waive punishment if the bribers themselves inform the authorities about an offense. But anticorruption activists said the measure doesn't go far enough. "It's a good move, but the court should have not just an option, but a duty to waive the punishment," said Maciej Wnuk, a board member of Transparency International Polska, an anticorruption lobby. "The person who notifies the authorities about a payoff should be guaranteed an acquittal; otherwise, they'll keep quiet." And Kopińska said that the tool would only be efficient in cases where extortion was involved.

But when both parties benefit from a given situation, the measure will, according to Kopińska, be much less effective. "It's a good idea, but its results will be smaller than we would wish," she said. Kopińska welcomed the idea to use crown witnesses in corruption-related proceedings, but she said that practical experience would prove the measure's efficiency. "Poland already has experience with crown witnesses in criminal cases, and the results are disputable," she said. Both Kopińska and Wnuk said more measures were needed to improve Poland's poor transparency image. Police and prosecutors should, according to Wnuk, be given the right to conduct sting operations. "Then an official would never know if the person offering him a bribe was a policeman," Wnuk said. He also said that apart from passing new legislation, authorities should make better use of existing regulations to prevent extortion. Officials protract procedures and, according to Wnuk, often violate legally required decision deadlines in order to extort bribes. "There are legal instruments to punish them (for such practices), but they are rarely applied," Wnuk said.

The new legislative package followed Transparency International's (TI) recently released annual corruption ranking. Poland ranked 45th, compared to 44th last year, with Finland taking the No. 1 slot as the world's most transparent country. Poland dropped in the ranking, as TI's corruption perception index for Poland worsened to 4.0 points from 4.1 last year. The result didn't surprise Kopińska, who said that the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)-led coalition has done little to combat corruption since gaining office last fall. "One of the SLD's election pledges was to depoliticize the civil services, but the practice proved contrary to their pledges," Kopińska said. In many cases, the SLD has moved away from the principle of recruiting officials via open competition, while according to Kopińska, persons who had won such competitions before elections were dismissed and replaced. "And a recent amendment even extended the number of positions that don't have to be filled via open competitions," she said.