News from around the PASOS network
Representatives from the Centre for Monitoring CEMI (CEMI) met with Montenegrin anti-corruption officials in January to discuss the creation of a new database to track potential conflicts of interest. The think-tank’s meeting with the the Commission for the Prevention of Conflicts of Interest was a continuation of cooperation and strengthening of activities aimed at improving an existing database. Working with CEMI, the commission created the current database in 2009. The commission had signed a memorandum of cooperation with CEMI in 2005. Montenegrin law requires the Commission to verify data collected about the assets and income of officials.
Responding to an appeal from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP), a Serbian government official charged with safeguarding personal privacy is calling on the national legislature to reject a proposal to give privates detectives access to personal data. Privacy commissioner Rodoljub Sabic described the law as a unconstitutional. Marko Milosevic, a BCSP researcher, told Serbian media that draft law was open to abuse of personal privacy. Because private detectives are virtually unregulated in Serbia, the law would open widespread access to sensitive personal information held in government records, he said.
Albanian lawmakers often miss parliamentary commission meetings, possibly rendering decisions made by such bodies invalid because of lack of quorums, according to a report released by the Institute of Democracy and Mediation (IDM). On the parliamentary commission for European integration, comprising nine MPs, for example, two opposition members were absent in 42 per cent and 39 per cent of the meetings respectively, and two members from the ruling majority missed 29 per cent and 25 per cent of the meetings, according to a report in the Balkan Insight online news service.
