The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) asks five members of the Parliament to use rights defined in the 65th Article of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia and in 79th Article of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament and to submit in Parliament a draft law of the amendments in Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau Law.
KNAB believes that it is obviously, that at this moment further progress of the draft law in Parliament knowingly is delayed, thus, issues about the incompleteness of the KNAB activity regulation, still is not going to be solved.
In accordance with the order of the Prime Minister No 12 on 2014 about the Working Group for the development of regulation for the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau Law, the State Chancellery on 15 September of 2015 to the Prime Minister submitted a draft law, prepared by this Working Group „Amendments in the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau Law".
Moving forward mentioned draft law, the Working Group in the covering letter explained the aim and justification for the amendments, stating, that this draft law is aimed to strengthen the functional independence of the KNAB.
This Working Group, chaired by the Ms Elita Dreimane, Director of the State Chancellery, was composed of the representatives from the KNAB, Prosecutor General Office, Supreme Court, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance and the State Chancellery. In the Working Group also participated Mr Gundars Jankovs, representative from the Transparency International.
Proposed solutions by this Working Group also were discussed with the representatives from Corruption Prevention Committee in Parliament and Legal Office of Parliament.
On 2nd October of 2014 were held the meeting of the Public Consultative Council of the KNAB, during which officials of the KNAB and NGO’s representatives discussed the question about the draft law. The Council conceptually supported to save the status of KNAB and strengthen the independency of Bureau, thus supporting further progress of this draft law.
The Public Consultative Council was created in May of 2004. Its aim is to ensure the participation of the members of public in implementing of anti-corruption policy and education of society in Latvia. The Council seeks ways how to strengthen the link between KNAB and society.
Also in public discussion on January 23 of this year, which was organized by the State Chancellery, in cooperation with the Transparency International and Centre for Public Policy „PROVIDUS”, according to the task of the Prime Minister, high-level experts and officials of the state administration, law enforcement agencies, NGOs, as well as from abroad, in the discussion about the institutional development of the KNAB, welcomed proposals made by the State Chancellery.
The proposals, made by the Working Group, on 10 February of this year were reviewed and welcomed also during the session of the Corruption Prevention Committee in Parliament. Closing this session, Mr Aleksejs Loskutovs, Chairman of Committee, informed that he is going to ask Prime Minister to move forward disscussed draft law.
In addition, KNAB informs that in the first European anti-corruption report European Commission proposes to continue the successful work of the KNAB, strengthening its independence and protecting it from possible political interference.
Additionally, KNAB informs, that during the 66th GRECO Plenary Meeting, which was held from 8th till 12th December of 2014 (in Strasbourg) the Group of States against Corruption noted with concern the update provided by the Latvian delegate regarding the recent developments in Latvia and the possible dismantling of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau. GRECO Secretary informed that no response from the government of Latvia hadn’t been provided to the letter regarding this matter, sent by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to the Prime Minister, on 3 November 2014. The Group of States against Corruption also stressed that, in the framework of GRECO’s Fourth Evaluation Round, a specific recommendation has been made to Latvia to strengthen the independence of the KNAB, in order to ensure that it can exercise its functions in an independent and impartial manner – GRECO will assess compliance with this recommendation at its next plenary meeting (67th Plenary Meeting will be held in Strasbourg on 23-27 March 2015).