The government adopted on Thursday a new bill which introduces restrictions for public office holders and transfers the powers of the current anti-corruption commission to the Court of Audits and other bodies.
The bill comes after the Constitutional Court ruled in April that several provisions of the act on the incompatibility of holding public office with a profit-making activity were unlawful.
Public Administration Minister Gregor Virant told the press today that the bill "is not directly connected with corruption prevention, it does however enable relevant bodies to suspect an instance of corruption on the basis of available data".
The bill restricts public office holders from participating in profit-making activities, rules their accepting gifts and exposes to public scrutiny their financial assets, albeit only during their term in office.
The transfer of the tasks currently carried out by the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption will occur on 1 January 2009, when Virant plans to abolish the commission, which he labelled "a kind of paper tiger".
"We will abolish the commission only after a new government is in office, and this precisely for the reason that no one will be able to accuse us that we are abolishing it because we are afraid of it," Virant explained.
Also today, the government adopted the bill on the ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption. The convention is a legal instrument which provides an institutional and regulatory framework for corruption prevention.
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