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The Faculty of Law and Public Administration at Birzeit
University and The Coalition for Accountability and
Integrity “AMAN” held a seminar on: “Enhancing the Role of
the Anti-Corruption Committee in Building the National
Integrity System” in the presence of Mr. Rafiq El Natsheh,
Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, on Tuesday
19/10/2010. The seminar discussed a number of related themes
such as the problems in reporting corruption, the
criminalization of Wasta (patronage) according to the
Anti-Corruption Law and the requirements for ensuring the
effectiveness and independence of Anti-Corruption Committee
work, where specialized working papers were presented by
professors of law and researchers and commented on by a
number of Palestinian experts.
The absence of a culture of good governance, transparency and
accountability enforces authoritarianism, ignorance and underdevelopment
upon societies
In his speech, Dr. Saleh Abdul Jawad, the Dean of the Faculty of Law and
Public Administration, pointed to the importance of involving political,
legal and academic officials specialized in the field of good governance
and combating corruption, and AMAN Institute, which is known for its
professionalism and credibility, in this first seminar of its kind since
the Committee was formed. He added that good governance, transparency,
integrity and accountability, whether governmental, civil or private are
the strong pillars that guarantee the building of an institutional,
impervious state, resistant to challenges from different sources.
He added that the absence of a culture of good governance, transparency
and accountability enforces authoritarianism, ignorance and
underdevelopment upon societies which leads to mismanagement and to
forms of corruption such as Wasta, favoritism, bribery and theft of
public money. He said that the report published by AMAN coalition in
the middle of this year holds critical data in content and numbers about
the nature of corruption in our country.
El Natsheh: The Committee is independent, there is a political will to
fight corruption and we will cooperate with AMAN
Mr. Rafiq El Natsheh, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, began
his speech by expressing his thanks to the organizers of the seminar:
Birzeit University and AMAN, saying that a civil organization such as
AMAN inviting us to support an official institution shows the fruitful
integration and cooperation between us in order to fulfill our
objectives of combating corruption. He added that the Committee is
unique, through a law ascertaining its independence in the presence of a
political will to fight corruption.
El Natsheh emphasized that corruption is unacceptable in the land of
martyrs and prisoners and that accountability must take place among the
highest and the lowest ranking officials, but in a legal manner. He said
that our people deserve to have a leadership free of corruption, that
each individual is responsible for reporting corruption and that
combating corruption is combating the other face of the occupation.
Protection for those who report corruption
El Natsheh said: “The law gave protection to any person who comes forth
with a complaint about corruption, and we cannot allow anyone to be
harmed just for complaining about someone.” He added: “We cannot say
that corruption is rampant everywhere, but we can say that it is
significant.”
He pointed out to the good cooperation between the Anti-Corruption
Committee and the Government, mentioning that there are previous and
current ministers who were called in for investigation.
The presence of the Law and the Committee are a main condition for the
success of the national efforts to fight corruption and build the
national integrity system
AMAN’s Executive Director, Ghada Zughayar, indicated that the
Anti-Corruption Law has guaranteed the independence and effectiveness of
the Anti-Corruption Committee, whose formation and approval of its law
was in response to and harmonious with the United Nations Convention
against Corruption of 2003.
Zughayar mentioned that AMAN founded the first nucleus for the
preparation of the Anti-Corruption Law, whereby it revised the Law for
Combating Illegitimate Gain, developed it and extended the powers and
specializations of the Committee to include investigation in all cases
of corruption.
Zughayar added: “Perhaps the criminalization of Wasta and favouritism
and pursuing them as a form of corruption crime punishable by law is a
victory for AMAN’s repeated calls to criminalize Wasta, favouritism and
nepotism, after reports, practical research and public opinion surveys
indicated that they are the most widespread forms of corruption in
Palestinian society.”
Zughayar considered the presence of the Law and the Committee as a main
condition for the success of the national efforts to fight corruption
and a main foundation for building the national system of integrity,
provided that this Committee enjoys, in accordance with the United
Nations Convention against Corruption, total independence and affective
ability and power.
Reporting corruption is a social problem
The first session was titled: “The Problems of Reporting Corruption,”
and the discussion was opened by Dr.
Ghassan
Faramand, the Director of the Institute of Law at Birzeit University,
who thanked AMAN for its hard work in combating corruption and
emphasized the importance of encouraging citizens to report corruption
in order to protect public money and ascertain the right of the citizen
to accountability.
Reporting corruption guarantees combating it
Bilal Al Barghouthi, legal consultant of AMAN, considered in his working
paper that reporting crimes in general and corruption crimes in
particular and the protection of those reporting these crimes are among
the most important guarantees to combating the phenomenon of corruption
and enhancing its pursuit, for reporting the crime may in many instances
prevent its occurrence and also avoid its serious consequences that may
result. This helps in building trust and confidence in society and leads
to the enhancement of individuals’ involvement especially and society
generally in combating corruption in all its forms and helping public
authorities to fulfill their responsibilities in this arena.
Al Barghouthi touched on the social constraints such as the
consideration by some citizens that reporting corruption is a form of
snitching on others, and that it seems that the value of reporting is
not associated, in the mind of the majority, with the citizen’s
responsibility of protecting public money.
The Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor recommends rewards for those
reporting
Mr. Akram Al Khatib, the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor within the
Committee, emphasized the need to put a special system of rewards in
place to whomever reports corruption, which would motivate witnesses and
those reporting.
The head of the economic crimes and money laundering prosecution: the
role of the media must be activated
Mr. Salem Jarrar, the head of the economic crimes and money laundering
prosecution, indicated the importance of reporting in order to arrive at
the correct information and asked for economic protection for the
reporting party and their families. Jarrar pointed to the need for
activating the role of the media because professional media knows how to
deal with these cases.
Dr. Ahmad El Sweiti of Birzeit University spoke about the regulations
for the protection of witnesses, that is, that a time limit must be
specified for the regulations to be issued, for the law is present but
suspended till the issuance of the regulations.
The audience recommended:
•
Issuing the special system for protection of reporters of
corruption in accordance with the provisions of Article 15 of the
Anti-Corruption Law of 2010.
•
Harmonizing the laws and removing and amending the legal texts
that appear in them and conflict with the responsibility of reporting
corruption.
•
Hastening the issuance of the draft law of the right to access to
information since it promotes a culture of transparency and disclosure.
•
Adopting a national strategy to fight corruption, where all
related parties are involved in this adoption, especially official
parties.
Second session: Wasta and favouritism, in accordance with the
Anti-Corruption Law, are serious crimes
Mrs. Abeer Musleh, Head of the Research and Development Unit in AMAN and
lecturer at Birzeit University of the course of integrity and
transparency in the face of corruption, pointed out to the difficulties
that society will face in combating Wasta and favouritism, due to the
mix-up in concepts such as helping the needy as that is a positive value
and refusing to accept a Wasta that is contrary to a right or accepting
of a wrong.
Dr. Mustafa Abdul Baqi of Birzeit University presented the crime of
Wasta in the light of international conventions and internal laws,
saying that this crime is more associated with less developed societies
and dictatorial political regimes lacking the values and principles of
democracy, equality and effective monitoring, which flourish in our Arab
region.
Abdul Baqi touched on the effects of Wasta and favouritism, in that they
undermine the values of justice and the rule of law and lead to
unnecessary appointments which burden the national economy, lead to
slack management and to disguised unemployment. He stressed that
pursuing crimes of corruption, including Wasta and favouritism is an
urgent need, but that it is more important and successful to fight them
and prevent their occurrence.
Dr. Ahmad Al Brak, the Chief Public Prosecutor, demanded that a general
provision be included in the law which criminalizes the trafficking of
influence, where Wasta and favouritism can be considered a part of this.
He also demanded to consider this crime as a serious one requiring
severe punishment.
Commander Ali Hilal, the Chief of the Anti-Crime Unit in the Palestinian
police, said that the last period had a quantum leap in the police as
form of promoting the principles of integrity and accountability for
members of the police force, such that all are under the rule of law.
Third session: Effectiveness and independence are a condition for the
success of the Committee in combating corruption and regaining the trust
of the citizens
Dr. Azmi Al Sho’aibi presented a paper in which he spoke about the
duties of the Committee, its powers and the requirements for its
independence and effectiveness. Al Sho’aibi indicated that the issued
law specified comprehensive duties for the Anti-Corruption Committee,
including the investigation of all complaints about corruption that it
receives from all official and civil parties, the examination of all
financial disclosures, raising the awareness of society at all its
official and non-official levels, drawing up the general policy for
combating corruption in cooperation with related parties and developing
the plans and programs needed to implement it.
In order to perform these duties, the law gave the Committee a large
group of powers including the investigation of all corruption cases as
an expert, the examination of financial disclosures for all Palestinian
Authority employees, and giving the chairman of the Committee the power
to appoint a sufficient number of employees and consultants to enable
the Committee to perform its duties.
In order to enjoy independence, this Committee must enjoy financial and
administrative independence and have the right to sign contracts,
appoint employees based on need and qualifications and have a clear and
sufficient budget allocated from the public treasury.
Al Sho’aibi added: “The Chairman of the Committee is not subject to the
executive authority in his work for he reports to the Chairman of the
Authority, the Council of Ministers and the Legislative Council. This
means he is neutral among the three authorities.”
Al Sho’aibi clarified that the practice of this independence by the
Committee is based, until now, on a desire expressed by the Chairman and
the credibility of the personality of the Chairman of the Committee.
Despite the importance of this, the institutionalization of the
Committee, building it on independent bases, qualifying the employees in
the subjects of professionalism, objectivity and neutrality, completing
all necessary systems to control procedures which significantly reduces
the discretion of the officials or employees in the commission, the
adoption of a code of conduct for the commission’s employees, the
immediate preparation of a training and qualifying plan for the working
body of the Committee in addition to providing the necessary financial
needs from the public budget (public treasury) will all help the
Committee to forge its path with effectiveness and independence
according to the required standards included in the United Nations
Convention against Corruption.
Al Sho’aibi asked the Prime Minister to issue official instructions to
all public officers to respect the work of the Committee, forbid the
interference in its work, punish whomever contravenes this and encourage
employees to report any information related to corruption to the
Committee.
Rasha Amarneh, the legal consultant of the Anti-Corruption Committee, in
turn indicated that the effective work of the Committee started several
months ago when it received tens of corruption files from the General
Prosecution and started to investigate them, at the same time as work is
being carried out to prepare the systems and procedures specific to the
work of the Committee.
launch of a study
During the seminar, the launch of a study was announced to
evaluate the commitment to the preventive measures of the
United Nations Convention against Corruption, which AMAN
prepared in cooperation with Transparency International,
where this study was prepared by Dr. Yasser Ammouri, Mr.
Mahmoud Alawna and with the general supervision and editing
of Dr. Azmi Al Shu’aibi.
This study aims to evaluate the degree of commitment to the
preventive measures for combating corruption according to
the United Nations Convention against Corruption, through
focusing on the legal and practical frameworks so as to
discover the shortcomings and defects that Palestinian
legislatures suffer from this in the respect and their areas
of non-harmony with the Convention, and to identify the
areas in which Palestinian legislatures are harmonious with
the Convention in order to strengthen them, enhance them and
support them with additional means.
Dr.
Yasser Ammouri presented some recommendations of this study,
such as the need to adopt the United Nations Convention
against Corruption by all Palestinian political levels,
modify some legislatures and harmonize them with the United
Nations Convention, adopt a clear approach to the topic of
civil service and end the interference of the security
services in the appointment process, in addition to
recommending the formation of a body or committee to promote
and activate the topic of conflict of interests.
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