SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

Rexhep Gashi, Dr. sc.Law on declaration, origin and control of the property and gifts of seniorpublic officials, contains provisions referring to acceptance of gifts byofficial persons. Pursuant to this law, all received gifts and their value, aswell as the name of persons receiving the gift, should be registered by theofficial person in the register of gifts determined by Agency and kept by theinstitution, in which the official person exercises the duty (Art.11). Registerof the gifts is public; therefore, designated institutions are required to ensureaccess by the public to the register, in compliance with provisions of theLaw on access to official documents.This Law foresees punitive provisions, which refer to sanctions, whichmay be imposed on senior public officials who hesitate to declare theirproperty or in a worse circumstance, make false declaration. Whilst severallegislations have foreseen harsh measures against officials refusing todeclare their property, by punishing them with termination of function andpunishment with Criminal Code, as the case is with legislation of Albania,Republic of Kosovo in no circumstance has foreseen request for terminationfrom employment of one person failing to declare the property. By virtue ofprovisions of this law, are foreseen measures much lighter punishable suchas administrative offence which are fine punishments in amount of up to1500 euro (failing to declare the property upon being required by theAgency), whilst the smallest fine punishment is 150 euro (failing to declarethe property after finishing the work in function and in cases when notdeclaring the property when commencing the jobs). In addition, the Kosovolegislation is not determined in which cases the officials’ behavior for notdeclaring the property commits criminal offence, which should have beensanctioned pursuant to state criminal legislation.Law on declaration, origin and control of the property and gifts of seniorpublic officials of Kosovo, certainly establish the legal ground fordeclaration of property of senior public officials and serves as a preventionmeasure for an efficient combat against corruption and prevention of misuseof public funds. The obligation for declaration of property of senior publicofficials enables promotion of transparency and higher accountability andsupports the building of legal state and democracy in the state. However, theestablishment of legal ground is insufficient if the political willingness andappropriate mechanisms for implementation of this law are not available.This is also obviously noticed with publication of Progress Report 2010 forKosovo, whereby it is specified that a serious problem in a combat againstcorruption in Kosovo, remains the property of politicians and declaration ofthis property, as pursuant to online publishing of property by the AnticorruptionAgency, a huge disproportion is noticed among real and declaredproperty of politicians (Kosova Sot 2010: 4), which proves a lack of politicalwill to combat corruption.72