TI BiH Criticisms: Proposed Amendments to the Law on Civil Service Will Not Ensure Depoliticization and Restore Public Trust

(Patria) - Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) sent a letter to the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina along with comments on the proposed amendments to the Law on Civil Service in BiH institutions, which has numerous shortcomings, although the goals of these amendments were supposed to be depoliticization and reorganization of the civil service within the framework of fulfilling one of the 14 priorities from the European Union's opinion.

If the proposed amendments are adopted, advisors to the members of the Presidency, the chairperson and ministers in the Council of Ministers, as well as the governor and vice-governors of the Central Bank, will be able to be individuals without a university degree and BiH citizenship, and individuals who have met the legal requirements for retirement will also be able to perform these jobs. Civil servants already working in institutions will not be obliged to complete a probationary period in case of a change of workplace, and will be evaluated only once a year, which is a "step backward" compared to the current law.

In addition, the proposed amendments do not address the issue of hiring and selection of civil servants at all, and an opportunity has been missed to improve meritocracy in employment, as it is not ensured that civil servants are appointed based on the results of a public competition with the obligation to appoint the most successful candidate to the position of civil servant. TI BiH receives daily reports from citizens indicating irregularities related to the conduct of public competitions and has been pointing out for years that the institute of public competition has been rendered meaningless at all levels of government because there is no obligation to select the civil servant who achieved the highest number of points in the selection process. Furthermore, the amendments do not address key issues of civil servant accountability, as well as the rationalization and efficiency of work.

It should also be emphasized that the conditions that no criminal proceedings are being conducted against the candidate and that the candidate has not been convicted of a criminal offense should represent general conditions, precisely because of the numerous examples of hiring convicted persons as well as cases of corruption involving civil servants.

Although the proposed amendments provide for the establishment of a register of employees in BiH institutions, which has been awaited for years and which should introduce greater transparency in this segment, it is important to point out that the recommendations of the Agency for Personal Data Protection have not been respected in that part, and if the proposed provision is adopted, it will not be in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, which the Agency has warned the law proposer about twice.

TI BiH recently published a study which showed that as many as 68.8% of BiH citizens do not trust the work of public administration employees, and almost four-fifths of respondents (78.6%) believe that jobs in this sector are obtained "through connections". Therefore, TI BiH believes that by adopting amendments to the Law on Civil Service of BiH, as well as through other reforms at all levels, depoliticization and professionalization of public administration must be ensured, which is the first step towards restoring citizens' trust in institutions.