Bill obliges political advisors to submit declarations of interest
An amendment to the anti-corruption act proposed by the Ministry of Justice states wants ministers' political advisors to submit a declaration of interests. The same bill would save the heads of security institutions from publishing the declarations.
The ministry highlights in the explanatory letter of the bill that the obligation of widening the circle of the representatives of the declarations comes from the Council of Europe's anti-corruption union GRECO.
According to this, declarations of public interests should be made by political advisers to the prime minister or other ministers.
However, the heads of security authorities are excluded from the list because they deal with state secrets and access to their data should be restricted. This data would be for internal use only.
With the new law, the Director-General of the Security Police and the Foreign Intelligence Agency, would not have to submit their declarations.
"The incomes of people in these positions are not public in Latvia, Finland, Poland and Germany either. In Lithuania, the declaration of interests of a security institution's director is public," said the explanation letter.
The amendment would affect 40 advisors
Every political advisor should start to submit the declaration once a year according to the bill. There are about 40 political advisors per ministries.
"With the entry into force of the law, the transparency and accountability of public administration will increase, while there will be no other significant effects. Given that the draft is partly due to the GRECO recommendations of the Council of Europe, the draft law has an impact on Estonia's cooperation with international organizations," was written in the explanation letter.
Currently, only advisers to the prime minister, the head of the bureau and assistants submit declarations of interests.
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Editor: Roberta Vaino