The first government-level anti-corruption programme has been completed. The Ministry of Public Administration and Justice has recently closed the relevant social consultations. The anti-corruption programme will be debated by the Government within weeks.

The anti-corruption programme points significantly beyond the actions taken in the past two decades to combat corruption as it does not merely emphasise the implementation of measures under criminal law but also attributes a major role to the prevention of corruption.

The programme involves specific measures with the aid of which the analysis of the risk of corruption, the assessment and investigation of suspicious cases and prevention, as far as possible, will emerge in the day-to-day operation of public administration organisations. The objective is to develop a public sphere that recognises, condemns and prevents corruption and further to call to life a degree of social collaboration that helps to reinforce and embed our ethical values in practice.

The publication of the document was preceded by a long process of preparatory work, as part of which the President of the State Audit Office, the President of the Supreme Court, the Chief Prosecutor and, on behalf of the Government, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics issued a joint statement in which they pledged their commitment to the fight against corruption.

Upon the drafting of the programme, the authors took account of several international and local research studies conducted in the last few years with respect to the state of corruption in Hungary which concluded that society regarded corruption as a grave problem and business players, too, looked upon corruption as one of the factors that most affected their operations.

According to surveys, both the population and business players in Hungary regard corruption as a grave problem. The latter additionally claim that it is a major hindrance in their operating environment which has a most harmful impact on the entire national economy. Compared with more than fifty countries around the world, Hungarians believe the most firmly that the individual players of the economy can only succeed at the expense of others. Hungarian society stubbornly believes that it is impossible to succeed by fair and honest means, and this in turn results in a lack of trust towards state institutions as well. We must confirm with regret that this lack of trust is not unfounded; a number of corruption cases emerged in previous years, during the socialist governments, which also involved state and local leaders.

The fundamental principles of the anti-corruption programme include, among others, credibility, the building of social trust and gradualness; in other words, implementation based on the amount of time necessary for the individual measures to take effect. It is important to involve partners in the programme, to focus on prevention as the centre of the transformation of organisational operation and a change of mentality, and to achieve accountability for every instance of corruption in the past.

Measures taken by the Government to fight corruption to date

The Government has implemented the most intensive series of anti-corruption measures of the last twenty years since its establishment in all three relevant areas. The three areas of corruption, political, social and economic corruption, must be managed as an integral whole as these have an impact on one another and achieve their goals in combination.

Hungary joined the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in September 2010 and reinforced and enhanced the competence of the prosecutor’s office in the interest of uncovering corruption-related crimes.

The Central Investigating Prosecution Office established an Anti-Corruption Cases Department, while as a result of the efforts of the National Defence Service set up under the auspices of the police, internal corruption networks were discovered and eliminated within the professional law enforcement staff which had previously operated undetected.

The Government has further taken significant measures towards the acceleration of the administration of justice so that crime perpetrators should not remain unpunished for years. Compared with the years before, the budget of courts was increased by HUF 3 billion in 2011.

The judicial reform, too, serves to guarantee the more effective, more transparent and more reasonable operation of prosecution offices and courts. One of the main goals of this reform process is to achieve that a final and absolute judgment is passed in every case within two years at most.

The new Penal Code, which is currently being debated as part of a social consultation process and is expected to enter into force on 1 July 2013, too, will prescribe more severe sentences for crimes of corruption.

After its entry into office, the Government began to hold accountable the previous political elite involved in earlier cases suspected of corruption and embarked on uncovering cases of mismanagement involving state property. The Government appointed a government commissioner for accountability and governmental anti-corruption measures who investigates earlier fraudulent practices at state-owned companies and the unlawful squandering of state landed properties.

One of the first laws passed by Parliament in the summer of 2010 was the Act on the responsible management of state assets which imposes stringent conditions with respect to the management of state assets and lays down that revenues derived from the sale of state assets must be re-invested in the management of assets and do not constitute additional revenues for the central budget. Hungary’s new Fundamental Law entering into force on 1 January 2012 defines the assets of the Hungarian State and municipalities as national assets, while Parliament passed a cardinal law on national assets in December.

A new public procurement law entered into force on 1 January 2012 which, in the interest of fighting fraud and corruption, closes the loopholes through which the assets of the State were previously siphoned off, and has created clear and transparent conditions.

The loopholes of state corruption are being closed down one by one, also as a result of the public administration reform currently in progress. The reforms embarked on in public administration, too, effectively contribute to the fight against corruption on the basis of the new legal rules.

The government decisions which prevent the unfair siphoning off of public funds under the semblance of legality also have an anti-corruption effect, in addition to effects of economy. By virtue of the drastic reduction of corporation tax, from 19% to 10%, the Government has taken a major step towards convincing market players that it is not worth resorting to trickery and evading laws.

(kormany.hu)