In the premises of Hotel Tirana International, on 6th of March 2017, was held the conference on the Project “Corruption Proofing in Albanian Legislation” that was organized by the Institute for Development, Research and Alternatives (IDRA) with the support of the Dutch Embassy and the cooperation of the Ministry of State and Local Issues.

The conference was held in two sessions in which IDRA presented the Methodology for Assessing the Corruption Proofing and the main findings from the assessment of 62 legal acts in the fields of healthcare, education, public services, social welfare and judicial reform. Such findings indicate that in any of the legal acts assessed by the group of experts, manifests at least one of the issues addressed in the above methodology. One of the main aims of the conference was the IDRA’s presentation of the platform “Legal Integrity Portal”, a platform which is public and where interested parties may find not only the assessment reports on the assessed legal acts, but whom may even track if the recommendations of the experts are taken into account by the legislator. Legal Integrity portal is designed to make a sequence of analyzed acts according widely available in each of them.

Participants of this conference were law professors, legal experts, Local/ International institutions jurists, representatives of civil society and several organizations with judiciary activity.

The conference was opened and moderated by Executive Director of IDRA, Mr. Auron Pasha, who in his speech emphasized the importance and necessity of project “Corruption Proofing in Legislation” for closing all the corruptive situations and for improving drafting of legislation. Mr. Pasha noted that the above mentioned project is a pilot aimed at creating an integrated system for corruption proofing in the Albanian Legislation.

Mrs  Dewi Van Der Weerd ,Ambassador Embassy of Netherland in Albania highlighted that combat against corruption is the most prior challenge for Albania nowadays, furthermore this is important within the fulfilment of 5 key criteria on European Union Integration. Combat against corruption it would make Albania an attractive place for foreign investors, more concretely for Dutch companies that have shown interest investing in Albania.

Mister of State on Local Issues, Mr. Bledi Çuçi in the capacity of National Anti-Corruption Coordinator underlined the consolidation of a unique methodology as a strategic object included in Albanian Government policies for increase of transparency and prevention of Corruption. Mr. Çuçi declared that getting the findings it will start the involvement process of this filter to increase the quality of legal draft acts. He emphasized that now is up to government to decide for establishment of an entity responsible for corruption proofing in public administration.

Mr. Darian Pavli, representative of Soros noted the importance of transparency as a mean on the fight of corruption. He emphasized the lack of transparency in public procurement procedures and in particular the lack of transparency in contract for public private partnership. He noted the difficulties of getting information from the attention paid to protection of personal data.

The well-known expert of drafting laws Mr. Sokol Berberi highlighted the importance of drafting legislation. Based on main findings presented by IDRA recommended on improving the methodology by taking into considerate the permissive and prohibitive character of law. He declared that the entering and material provisions are important regarding the language and prediction of responsibilities and control mechanisms.

Based on main findings according missing reference provisions and lack of control mechanism Mrs. Vasilika Hysi explained difficulties encountered in practice by prediction of provisions in details. She noted that laws are changing frequently and the established institutions are being merged and ri-structured by changing the names and for this reason legislator has seen fit not to predict with details the delegation provisions or reference provisions.

Head of RAI Secretariat Mr Vladan Joksimovic gave a regional overview of corruption proofing in region countries by highlighting the importance of including corruption proofing in Albanian Legislation and determine the responsible structure for this discipline.

Methodology Corruption Proofing