Anti-Corruption Center complains authorities do not always present draft law for its expertise

The biggest drawback in checking new draft laws for anti-corruption is the authors not always presenting them to get the expertise of the Economic Crimes and Corruption Combating Center (ECCCC). It's the ECCCC's conclusion in the Anti-Corruption National Report for 2008, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. “Although to get the expertise for the drafts is compulsory since 2006, there authorities which avoid us, by tricking,” deputy chief of the ECCCC Vitalie Verebceanu said Tuesday at the Anti-Corruption National Conference. Vitalie Verebceanu says the Center notified the Government concerning this issue. To remove it, the ECCCC wants to organize training courses and publish a brochure on the anti-corruption expertise. The ECCCC experts conclude that the most frequent corruptibility factor is ambiguous linguistic wording. It is followed by norms granting excessive discretion to public authorities and the norms allowing the authorities to establish by themselves regulations and interdictions. When being enforced, all these norms can render the authority in charge the possibility to create conditions to make its work easier, even to the detriment of the beneficiaries' interests. Another deficiency is that the drafts are not always well assessed economically and financially. This drawback has also been remarked by civil society experts, who check the drafts for corruptibility, alongside the ECCCC. The NGO experts find that some 80% of the info-notes to the draft laws are but formal. An expert with the Corruption Analysis and Prevention Center, Corneliu Gurea, said the Parliament had accepted, last year, half of their objections to drafts. At the same time, the Legislature accepted 80% of the objections put up by the ECCCC. An expert with Transparency International (TI) Moldova, Efim Obreja, says no objection worded by the TI were taken into account by the Parliament. “Although it is compulsory to make the expertise to the legislation, the objections are seen as recommendations and are not always included into the final texts of laws,” the ECCC deputy chief said. Making the expertise of laws was made compulsory in 2006, by modifying the Law on the normative acts of the Government and other authorities.