Citizens, administration and corruption Experiences of Anti-corruption Legal Advice Center of TS

Organization Transparency - Serbia

Invites you to attend Conference

Citizens, administration and corruption Experiences of Anti-corruption Legal Advice Center of TS

That will take place in the Media Center, Terazije 3, second floor, on Tuesday, 28 February 2017, starting at 11.00 am

Agenda:

11.00 – 11.05 Foreword - prof. PhD Vladimir Goati, President of Transparency - Serbia

11.05 – 11.10 Representative of the EU Delegation in Serbia (TBC)

11.10 – 11.20 Ana Brnabić - Minister of Public Administration and Local SelfGovernments (TBC)

11.20 – 11.30 What are the areas most suspected of corruption by the citizens and what problems do they face with? - Rade Đurić, Associate of the organization Transparency - Serbia

11.30 – 11.35 From individual cases to changes of regulation and practice – initiatives of TS submitted to state organs, on the basis of experiences from Anti-corruption Legal Advice Center - Zlatko Minić, Associate of the organization Transparency – Serbia From

11.35 Discussion

For any further information, please feel free to contact Ms. Miša Bojović to 011/303 38 27 or by e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Transparency - Serbia Belgrade, 14 February 2016.

The topic of the conference:

According to the latest Global Corruption Barometer, published by Transparency International, 22% of Serbian citizens (those who had contacts with certain public services and provided answer to this question), said that they paid bribe in the past 12 months. Based on this we can conclude that every year hundreds of thousands of cases of petty corruption occurs in Serbia (that citizens have knowledge about). On the other hand, the number of reported criminal acts of corruption does not exceed a few thousand, and the number of convictions is measured in hundreds.

Fight against corruption does not provide sufficient results also due to many citizens who are faced with this phenomenon do not know of legal mechanisms that are available to them, or do not have enough confidence in the work of institutions that should resolve these problems.

Transparency Serbia (official chapter of international network of Transparency International), is an organization that is dedicated to creating and implementing a successful anti-corruption policy in Serbia. Since 2006, under the Anti-corruption Legal Advice Center we provide assistance to citizens who feel like victims of corruption or that discovered corruption in some other way and want to prevent it, or expose the mechanisms of corruption.

Often, people suspect of corruption where in reality it doesn’t occur. But something else can be the problem - poor organization of administration, lack of information about what the citizens’ rights are and what are the obligations of servants or lack of resources. These problems should be equally solved as well as corruption. This reflects a strong link between anti-corruption measures and the reform of public administration and the introduction of the principle of open government.

Building a system of rule of law and administrative capacity of the administration to ensure the implementation of these laws and meet the legitimate needs of citizens and businesses represent the essence of European integration. It is therefore necessary that the problems of the citizens are effectively addressed, and that the authorities draw the lessons and address the problems of the system on the basis of individual problems that are recognized.

In 2015 and 2016, TS has intensified its work in the Counseling, resulting in a large number of cases in which citizens were provided with assistance, as well as with dozens of initiatives for resolving of systemic problems which citizens were most often confronted with and submitted to state authorities.

At the final conference of the project, on 28 February at 11am in the Media Center, Transparency Serbia will present two years results of the work of Counseling, the problems that the citizens are most often faced with and areas that are most often suspected of corruption, the positive examples and cases, as well as plans for further actions in the fight against systemic corruption, including specific initiatives to change the laws and practice in the work of central and local authorities.

Transparency Serbia implements this project in partnership with organizations Becej Youth Association - BUM Bečej and the Centre for Social Innovation - NIIT Niš . The project is funded by the EU Delegation in Serbia.

We also invite you to attend the round table which will be held in the same premises after the press conference, with the beginning at 12am with the following subject: “The Law on Protection of Whistleblowers – regulation and results of the implementation".