5th February 2016

Transparency International Czech Republic asks MPs to push forward debate, adopt reform of political finance | OECD: Financing Democracy report

Transparency International Czech Republic asks Czech MPs to push forward debate and adopt reform of political party financing. The draft act has been waiting for its turn in the Chamber of Deputies for quite some time. The bill proposes establishing of an authority that would monitor political party financing, impose sanctions and be in charge of public oversight over political finance, among others. One of the problems TI Czech Republic mentioned in their analysis relates to "transparent accounts" of political parties; most political parties made publicly accessible information on money inflows only, and not the outflows...

Other issues include

- cummulation of donations from various entities who have the same owner;

- cummulation of donations from the same entity within one year;

- sponsorships from a political party to a political party;

-  businesses owned by political party and their financial management;

- donation presented as an investment.

- persons charged with criminal activity or connected with income from criminal activities.

 
Read details - analysis, presentation of results, media coverage (in Czech).

 

Also, OECD published on 4 February 2016 its report Financing Democracy: Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns and the Risk of Policy CaptureThe Czech Republic is among 27% of OECD countries where reports from political parties and/or donors must reveal the identity of donors in all cases (in 73% of countries the identity of donors is revealed under certain conditions). Also, the report says, disclosure practices are considerably higher in the executive and legislative branches of the government than in the judiciary. Out of all OECD countries, disclosure on conflict-of-inetersts is not required for judges and prosecutors in the Czech Republic, France and New Zealand.

 

 

 

Members of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic