Ihar Rynkevich:The new law on corruption has interesting ideas in it, but they won’t work in Belarus

The authorities are preparing the society to a new fight on corruption. The new draft law presupposes that the property that exceeds the legitimate income will be seized from the officials.

Not only officials and persons elected for civil service will have to declare their income, but also their spouse, minor children, and close relatives, who live together with them and maintain a joint household. And if during the control excess in price of property and other expenses for the period when the officials were occupying corresponding positions will clearly exceed the income from the legal sources, then by means of prosecutor’s claim the property might be seized to the state income.

Ihar Rynkevich, the head of the Enlightenment Institution “Democracy Development League “Civic Verdict”, the coordinator of the information and the participant of the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum assumes that the new draft law is just a promotion of yet another fight on corruption, “all former campaigns resulted in nothing”.

- Corruption is one of the favourite Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s topics – it is under the pretext of anticorruption policy that he became president, - recalled Ihar Rynkevich in the interview with the “EuroBelarus” Information Service. – Nevertheless, declaration of income and property of officials is a regular control measure used in many countries of the world. But taking into account the Belarusan understanding of “rule of law”, what will become with this innovation in the Belarusan reality is a different question. I think that this measure will be passionately spread on disloyal officials who are not trusted anymore, but were not caught yet, will be kept on a short leash though without any damage to their property.

According to Rynkevich, “it is most likely that this draft law won’t become a law in the way it was suggested; I think that the parliament will do everything to dilute these norms, leave a bunch of loopholes for themselves, and enforcement practice will be in the state of introduction for a long time”.

- As to the political and legal aspect, I think that this move is very symbolic now. Perhaps, Lukashenka is partially losing control over regional and industry officials. It is no secret that in the regions and districts the officials are way feudalistic – public control doesn’t work, mass media can’t control anything because of the political reasons. That is why all these “feudal princes” can only be controlled with the scheme that is based on one person with the supreme power. And clearly, it is impossible to control everyone; i.e. officials and managers will still have absolute power.

And that means that even if the law is adopted, it will become a sword of Damocles that the supreme authority holds on the officials. It is no use to talk about the equality before the law in the Belarusan situation; loyal officials will stay the same. Though theoretically, officials are not businessman, and shouldn’t have any other income except salary and some fees from, say, scientific or teaching activities. We’ll see how it will be put into practice.

Ihar Rynkevich also doesn’t rule out that in the situation of an open border with Russia and interests that Russian capital has in Belarus Lukashenka is concerned with the loyalty of the officials.

- I think that Lukashenka is concerned with the engagement of the officials with some other state, first of all with our eastern neighbor – Russia. The authorities understand that luring of the Belarusan officials from Russia can lead to excessive independence and readiness to betray their boss in favor of the new boss.

Rynkevich also emphasizes that “the best fight on corruption is the economy that is not regulated from above, when market laws, not bureaucrats are responsible for making decisions”.

- It has been proved that the biggest corruption happens in the poor countries, where officials have almost unlimited power. In a democratic country the possibility that the official gets illegal income is almost null – everything runs through tenders, auctions, without distribution schemes. And our state has way too many opportunities for corruption. So campaigns won’t change anything; the whole system should be reformed.

“EuroBelarus” reference

According to Eurostat, in 2013 Belarus had the highest inflation rate in Europe and shared the first place with Russia. Among the 177 countries in the world in the rate drawn up by Transparency International Belarus occupied 123 place, while its neighbors had the following rates: Poland (38), Latvia (43), Russia (127), Ukraine (144).