The Institute for Political Studies (ISP) with the support of the Civil Society Program for Albania and Kosovo, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway and managed by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF) in partnership with Partners Albania for Change and Development is implementing the project “Clean Parliament: Accountability and Transparency”. The project is to be implemented in the time frame January 2019 – April 2020.
We have noted the initiation of formal practices aimed at the preliminary declaration of conflict of interest situations. To the first three cases of 2019, another case was added in the second phase of the project “Clean Parliament: Accountability and Transparency”. This is a positive and encouraging signal for the practice that seems poised to become a standard of regular conduct for MPs and for the institutions that work in conjunction to the Albanian Parliament.
In the second project implementation phase, ISP estimated that the replacement of about 45 MPs in Parliament resulted in a growing knowledge gap in relation to the Parliamentary Code of Conduct, the Rules of Procedure and the obligations and responsibilities associated with exercising their representative function in parliamentary activity. The training undertaken by the Assembly helped to partially solve this problem, but the ISP finds that a significant proportion of the new MPs have not been part of the training and continue to reflect in their activity the urgent need for capacity building related to parliamentary activity, rules, rights, responsibilities, procedures and concepts of transparency and accountability.
ISP considers that the drafting and approval by the Parliament of the new Parliamentary Rules of Procedure is a positive development that brings important innovations in some elements that make the parliamentary activity more functional and transparent in all aspects related to functioning, representation and decision-making. The new Regulation has reinforced the obligation to declare situation of conflict of interest commitments, yet it remains an open question how MPs will apply them in practice.
ISP notes with concern that several MPs hold differing views from the experts of the High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Audit of Assets (HIDAA) and the relevant manuals on
alleged cases of conflict of interest, and that they see the need for prior disclosure as a violation of their freedom and integrity and as a restrictive practice of parliamentary and professional activity. There has also been criticism among lawmakers over cases reported so far, albeit that declarations in the Registry are setting a standard that affects a large number of MPs.
The ISP has found out that parliament has not taken any clarifying and corrective actions on the recommendations made by the ISP and civil society to clarify practices where the very same MPs exercise at the same time several parallel functions in initiating, reporting, evaluating, investigating and voting on initiatives undertaken by them. These acts leave room for potential situations of conflict of interest. The parliament has also not reflected on suggestions that former ministers may not act at the same time as rapporteurs and evaluators of initiatives they have taken on their previous posts, especially when it comes to nominating individuals who have been part of their political staff.
The ISP monitoring of the committees and plenary sessions has shown that due to the absence of the mainstream political opposition, attention and interest in investigating or declaring conflict of interest allegations has dropped significantly. In the country’s political and public discourse, references to Conflict of Interest have been minimal and relate mainly to the conflictual relationship between the SP-dominated parliament and the president.
Our monitoring shows that there is still no single MP statement in the Register of Donations. There are no recorded cases of conflict of interest statements regarding lobbying in the Assembly and there have been no recorded cases of parliamentary inquiry on various allegations of conflict of interest indicated by the media, civil society with regard to particular deputies.
Most of the denunciations coming from citizens and the media have not been dealt with by parliament and ISP staff has found that most of these denunciations were politically motivated. The ISP has cooperated with the High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Audit of Assets (HIDAA) and other state authorities to investigate the cases, but until now it has been difficult to collect all the data of the alleged files as cases of conflict of interest.
Finally, HIDAA has failed to establish a credible and functional evaluation system for potential cases of conflict of interest for MPs. ISP reiterates the recommendation that the Assembly should establish a functional, transparent registration, awareness raising, investigation and evaluation mechanism for cases of conflict of interest, that parliamentary groups themselves take serious steps to apply the Code of Conduct standards to their groups and to parliamentary activity. MP sand HIDAA itself should to be more effective and professional in handling potential cases of conflict of interest.
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