After assessment of the Latvian Criminal Law compliance with requirements of international conventions, the Group of States against Corruption (hereinafter – GRECO) has recommended Latvia by April 2010 to criminalise bribery of arbitrators and of those employees of state and municipal institutions which are not public officials under Criminal Law, as well as to establish a criminal liability in those bribery cases where a benefit is given to a third person and not to a public official.
The GRECO experts have concluded that the provisions on bribery set out in the Latvian Criminal Law in some of their aspects do not correspond to the requirements of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption and its Additional Protocol. Therefore, Latvia has received 8 recommendations in order to eliminate deficiencies in the provisions on bribery and 5 recommendations concerning transparency of political parties funding.
The institution representing Latvia in GRECO – the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau has prepared an informative report on the necessary measures for implementation of GRECO recommendations. The said report was announced in the State Secretaries’ Meeting on 18 December 2008.
In 2000 Latvia ratified the Council of Europe’s Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. Therefore the reports on compliance with the requirements of the convention are binding and deficiencies detected in the respective legal provisions have to be eliminated.
The problems pointed in the GRECO report correspond to the already known problems in Latvia, i.e. limited possibilities to hold criminally liable for bribery of those state and municipal employees who are not public officials, for example, employees of public hospitals. The GRECO experts have pointed out the incomplete regulation regarding corruption in private sector and have recommended criminalising passive bribery of any employee working in the private sector irrespective of the position taken.
One of the recommendations to Latvia foresees to increase sanctions for trading in influence making them proportionate and effective and more severe to ensure in particular that the limitation period for this offence is extended as investigation of such crimes is complicated and more time consuming.
After evaluation of Latvian legislation regarding transparency of political parties funding the GRECO experts have pointed at substantial deficiencies in ensuring equal rules for all political parties as there is a lack of legal provisions regarding third parties involvement in pre-election campaigning. It was concluded that such lacuna can be easily abused by avoiding campaign expenditure and individual donation ceilings.
At the same time it has been recommended to take the necessary measures in order to improve the liability of natural persons for violations of political parties financing regulations by introducing administrative sanctions or extending criminal liability to the said violations.
The GRECO experts have stressed that the independence of the supervisory mechanism and enforcement of political parties finance regulations are essential and therefore admit that the positioning of the KNAB under the government supervision places it in the awkward position of having to supervise its supervisors. In this regard GRECO recommends Latvia to take measures to strengthen the independence of the KNAB (including as regards the supervision of its activities, the procedure for appointing and dismissing its Director and deciding on its budget), thus ensuring that it can exercise its functions in an independent and impartial manner.
GRECO’s objective is to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by regularly evaluating each member states capacity in corruption prevention and combating, as well as by providing respective recommendations. The GRECO third evaluation round themes are criminalisation of corruption and transparency of party funding.
The evaluations reports and recommendations to Latvia were adopted during the GRECO Plenary meeting on 10 of October 2008 and they are available at the GRECO homepage (http://www.coe.int/t/dg1/greco/evaluations/round3/ReportsRound3_en.asp). Latvia has to submit the report on implementation of recommendations by 30 April 2010.