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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
• 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.
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.
