Brussels, 28/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - Belgium needs to reinforce its mechanisms to prevent corruption within its legislative and judicial institutions, said the body of the Council of Europe responsible for the fight against corruption (GRECO), in a report published on Thursday 28 August.
GRECO took note of the recent introduction of ethical rules and a Federal Ethics Commission, as well as the setting in place of preventative mechanisms, including a system for declaring gifts, mandates, positions and interests of federal members of Parliament, it explains in a press release. “However, the regulatory system suffers from a lack of effectiveness and sometimes appears to be unnecessarily complex”, it adds.
Gifts and lobbies
GRECO says that Belgium must “ensure that more coherent and effective regulations are put in place notably concerning gifts and other benefits, and also how to engage in relations with third parties such as lobbies who would seek to influence the Parliamentary process”. The system of declarations must “be revised in order to include clearly the income and an estimate of the value of the assets of members of Parliament, which should be made public and easily accessible”. Lastly, it finds that the disciplinary control mechanisms should be made more effective.
GRECO also notes a lack of staff and resources in the Belgian justice system, which means that “considerable recourse is had to lawyers, in particular, to serve as judges and prosecutors (the umbrella term “magistrat” is used to refer to both of these functions), which raises various problems”. Nor has the judicial system been sufficiently assessed. Audits should be carried out, in particular in order to understand the various perceptions of the different judicial systems of the quality of verdicts returned, the Council of Europe group added.
Fifteen recommendations were made to Belgium on Friday for these gaps to be plugged. Implementation of these recommendations will be assessed in the first half of 2016, GRECO states. (SP)