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National Integrity System Assessment LITHUANIA 2 National Integrity System Assessment LITHUANIA 2 Contents II. About the National Integrity System Study in Lithuania ...................................................... 8 III. Lithuania: Country Profile ................................................................................................. 15 IV. Corruption Profile Analysis in Lithuania .......................................................................... 23 V. Analysis of Anti-corruption Activities in Lithuania ........................................................... 26 VI. National Integrity System Assessment:Lithuania .............................................................. 28 1. Legislative ............................................................................................................................ 29 2. Executive.............................................................................................................................. 43 3. Judiciary ............................................................................................................................... 58 4. Public Sector ........................................................................................................................ 80 5. Law Enforcement Agencies ................................................................................................. 96 6. Central Electoral Commission (CEC) ................................................................................ 116 7. Seimas Ombudsmen............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 8. Supreme Audit Institution .................................................................................................. 143 9. Anti-corruption agencies .................................................................................................... 156 10. Political parties................................................................................................................. 169 11. Media ................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 12. Civil Society....................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 13. Business ........................................................................................................................... 216 VII. Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 235 VIII. Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 238 IX. Literature..........................................................................................................................247 About the authors...................................................................................................................274 3 Every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained in this report. Nevertheless, Transparency International Lithuanian Chapter cannot accept responsibility for the consequences of its use for other purposes or in other contexts. The report draws on research for a period up until 2012. As a result, this report may not reflect some recent developments. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. This book is not for sale. With the financial support from the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Union European Commission - Directorate-General Home Affairs 4 I. Introduction Dr Algimantas Čepas This book deals with the resistance to corruption of separate constituent parts of the Lithuanian state and society. Perhaps there is no need to argue that corruption is one of the most complicated issues in our country. It receives considerable attention in country programme documents as well as political rhetoric. It is also widely discussed in academic literature. However, corruption is usually seen from the point of control. The book takes a look at this problem from a different angle and focuses most attention on corruption prevention. The book provides an evaluation of whether different parts of the state and the society are resistant to corruption, it establishes the weak parts of the system and proposes ways to strengthen them. We think that in Lithuania the issue of corruption prevention has not been considered and analysed sufficiently and this book should encourage the development of the discourse of corruption prevention in our country. Assessment of integrity of different society and state sectors, presented in this book, allows claiming that the general level of integrity in the country is at least middling and in some sectors it is proper. The pillars of the Seimas ombudsmen, National Audit Office, anti-corruption agencies were assessed as strong or very strong. The legislative, the executive, judiciary, the public sector, law enforcement institutions, political parties, media, civil society and business were assessed as somehow weaker. It is fair to acknowledge that Lithuania already has legal regulation which could allow ensuring appropriate integrity of both state institutions and separate sectors of the public. It is true, however, that some components of the legal regulation are lacking. No complex system of whistle-blowers protection has been created to this day; lobbying is almost unregulated, the legal regulation of the non-state sector is poorly developed as well. Some irregularities in the legal regulation have also been spotted. For instance, legal norms do recognise the somewhat over-extensive freedom in the creation and activity of political parties but also provide for quite numerous excessive requirements of business control. And yet, it is possible to state that legal regulation is sufficient in order to ensure basic requirements for integrity. The legal regulation was assessed as good or very good in almost all the pillars. Exceptions would be the legal regulation of the accountability of the legislative, independence of public sector, business and political parties, and media integrity which were assessed as middling. But perhaps too many problems in our country are tackled by creating and amending legal acts, however, instead of that more attention should be focused on the daily activities of the state and different public institutions. Different chapters of this book confirm such a hypothesis. Even admitting that separate areas analysed in the book are regulated almost perfectly, it is generally necessary to admit that excellent rules of law do not result in excellent practice. Requirements established by legal provisions remain declarative and they often remain disregarded in practice. In some fields the gap between law and practice is especially distinct. While the legal regulation of the resources, independence and transparency of the judiciary, accountability of the public sector, independence and integrity mechanisms of law enforcement institutions, transparency of the media and resources of the civil society is assessed as good or very good, the practical implementation is minimal in the aforementioned fields. 5 In many fields there is lack of resources, especially human resources to ensure that anticorruption provisions work effectively. The judiciary, political parties, media and business enjoy only middling resources. The resources of the civil society are only minimal. However, it is hardly probable that the lack of resources is the major factor determining limited efficiency of anti-corruption rules. A greater problem is the fact that both those who have to conform with anti-corruption rules and those controlling their enforcement in both state and non-state sectors have a too formal perception of an anti-corruption as an activity. The meaning and necessity of such activity is not fully appreciated (for example, integrity mechanisms are mostly formed on the initiative of the political government, thus their operation in the fields of civil society, media and business is assessed only as middling or minimal). As a result, the requirements imposed by legal acts regulating anti-corruption are perceived just as additional bureaucracy and, in its turn, such perception means that these requirements are applied in a bureaucratic manner as well (the operation of integrity system of the legislative is assessed only as middling, and in the field of law enforcement institutions – only as minimal). By mechanically applying legal provisions and using some imagination even detailed rules established by the legal acts may be bypassed. At the same time the strictness and detail of regulating and its formalised application in practice determines unsound restrictions to corruption-free persons. Therefore it would be a reasonable solution for the state to pay more attention and make more investments in order to raise the motivation of people performing anti-corruption functions in both state and non-state sector; to develop their skills to focus attention on cases worth suspicion and investigation. At the same time it is possible to speculate that the majority of such cases remain unnoticed because of the lack of legal ways of disclosing them (the accountability of the legislative, law enforcement institutions, political parties and the media is assessed only as middling, the accountability
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