Corruption and Anti-Corruption Measures in Central and Eastern Europe NISPAcee The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe CORRUPTION AND ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE Edited by Katarína Staroňová Emília Sičáková-Beblavá 2009 Copyright © 2009 by NISPAcee The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe http://www.nispa.org Corruption and Anti-Corruption Measures in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by Katarína Staroňová Emília Sičáková-Beblavá Published by NISPAcee Press Polianky 5 841 01 Bratislava 42 Slovak Republic tel/fax: 421 2 6428 5557 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.nispa.org/press Printed in Slovakia ISBN 978-80-89013-47-0 This publication was funded by LGI / OSI (The Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute), Budapest, Hungary. Table of Contents About the Authors .............................................................................................................7 Preface .................................................................................................................................9 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Measures: Introduction Emília Sičáková-Beblavá, Katarína Staroňová ................................................. 11 PART I Corruption in the New Member States Is Corruption in the New Member States Converging with the Rest of The EU ? An Empirical Investigation. Miroslav Beblavý ................................................................................................ 23 What are the Changes in the “Lithuanian Map of Corruption”? Jolanta Aleknevičienė ..................................................................................... 45 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Tools in the Slovenian Political System Miro Hacek ......................................................................................................... 65 Public Policy Intervention Instruments in the Fight against Corruption Katarína Staroňová ............................................................................................ 77 PART II Examples of Anti-corruption Measures in the New Member States Interest Groups, Lobbying, Interaction Environment and Transparency in Public Sector Decision-Making Beáta Meričková, Ján Šebo ............................................................................... 103 Open Government ?Free Access to Information in Slovakia Erik Láštic ......................................................................................................... 121 Annual Reports as a Tool for Increasing the Transparency of Public Institutions Juraj Mišina ...................................................................................................... 135 Public Comments to VZN Ordinances:The Hidden Potential of this Civic Participation Instrument in the Fight against Corruption in Slovakia’s Local Governments Alexandra Suchalová, Matej Polák .................................................................. 145 Reforming the Financing of Political Parties in Slovakia Emília Sičáková-Beblavá, Juraj Mišina ........................................................... 161 Anti-Corruption Measures in Slovak Judiciary: The Case of Court Management and Special Court Katarína Staroňová .......................................................................................... 183 The Role of Structural Reforms in Active Labour Market Policy in Anti-corruption in Slovakia Miroslav Beblavý .............................................................................................. 207 The Protection of Whistleblowers in Romania Victor Alistar, Andreea Nastase ....................................................................... 225 NISPAcee Press information NISPAcee Press Call ..................................................................................................... 249 Recent, upcoming and other relevant NISPAcee publications ............................... 251 About the Authors Aleknevičienė, Jolanta is a Sociologist, Doctor of Social Science, Project Manager of Transparency International Lithuanian Chapter. Contact: [email protected] Alistar, Victor is Executive Director at Transparency International Romania and University Assistant at the National School for Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest; Contact: [email protected]. Beblavy, Miroslav teaches at the Institute of Public Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia and is the Chairman of the Slovak Governance Institute. His research areas of interest are: public finance and public sector organisation, social policy, and corruption. Contact: [email protected] Láštic, Erik is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Slovakia. His research interest focuses on the political system of Slovakia, especially direct democracy instruments, executive-legislative relations and national coordination in EU affairs. Contact: [email protected]. Hacek, Miro is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and Head of the Department of Policy Analysis and Pub- lic Administration, Ljublana, Slovenia. He has published many scientific articles, papers and books in both the Slovenian and English languages. Contact: [email protected]. Meričková, Beáta works as an Associate Professor of Public Economics and Serv- ices at the Department of Public Economy, Economics Faculty of Matej Bel Uni- versity. Contact: [email protected]. Mišina, Juraj is a PhD. candidate at the Institute of Public Policy (Comenius Uni- versity, Bratislava, Slovakia) and also works as a junior research fellow at the Slovak Governance Institute. In 2005, he also worked for the Slovak Foreign Policy As- 7 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Measures in Central and Eastern Europe sociation. His research focuses on church-state relationships in the policy-making process, but he is also interested in transparency issues and corruption. Contact: [email protected] Nastase, Andreea is Project Officer at Transparency International Romania; Contact: [email protected]. Sičáková-Beblavá, Emília teaches at the Institute of Public Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia and is the Program Director of Transparency International Slovakia. Her research areas of interest are: corruption, public procurement, control systems and public services delivery. Contact: [email protected]. Staroňová, Katarína works at the Institute of Public Policy and is a consultant on the issues of governance in CEE countries. Her research is in the area of policy making processes and the capacity of Central European governments, with specific focus on politico-administrative relations, public involvement in decision-making and impact assessment. Contact: Institute of Public Policy, Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia. Contact: [email protected] Suchalová, Alexandra is PhD. candidate at The Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences – European Studies and Policies since 2007. In September 2007, she ob- tained her master’s degree in Public Policy at The Institute of Public Policy (IPP) – Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava. Her diploma thesis touched on the topic of public participation-analyses of models and tools of public participation at the municipal level. Currently, she is working on her dissertation and also participates in projects implemented at the IPP. Her research is focused on analysis of social housing in Slovakia. Contact: [email protected] Šebo, Ján works as an Associate Professor of Public Economics and Services at the Department of Public Economy, Economics Faculty of Matej Bel University. Contact: [email protected]. 8 Preface Corruption is a phenomenon that has been experienced by many of us or at least we have heard about it. Frequently, it invites despair. In the words of Transpar- ency International, “Corruption is one of the greatest challenges of the contemporary world. It undermines good government, fundamentally distorts public policy, leads to the misallocation of resources, harms the private sector and private sector development and particularly hurts the poor”1. However, it is not an incurable disease. By using the right approach, much can be done to decrease it. Not only in the old democracies, but also in the new ones, there are many examples of successful tackling of corruption in the public sector. From the beginning of the transition process, many measures, which have an im- pact on corruption restriction, were adopted in the new EU member states. They range from information tools (e.g. the Freedom of Information Act) and adminis- trative tools (e.g. whistleblowing protection) to economic tools (e.g. active labour market policy reform). Appropriate anti-corruption measures can be developed and adopted when the knowledge concerning the concrete types and scope of cor- ruption in a particular country is available. Thus, rather than discussing the many facets and connotations of the concept corruption, in the following volume we look at anti-corruption instruments utilised in Central and Eastern Europe. The publication is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the level of corruption in central and eastern European countries. Miroslav