Corruption Proofing in Albania-A critical ingredient in the fight against corruption

Duration: 1.5 years

Donor:  Netherlands Embassy

The Institute for Development, Research and Alternatives (IDRA), with the financial support of the Dutch Embassy in Albania is currently conducting a three (3) year project aimed at establishing a system for corruption proofing of legislation. The project will establish a system for expert corruption proofing of legislation in Albania. A group of selected legal experts will be trained by a local and international consultant in te methodology required for "corruption proofing" of legislation. The corruption proofing system will look into draft laws and secondary legislation and will spot existing or missing features in those normative acts which can contribute to corruption (regardless whether there was an intention or not, in drafting the specific act). The system will also look at already enacted legislation applying the same methodology. 

Each legal act screened will be accompanied by a report of Corruption Proofing, identifying the problematic issues of the law as well as providing recommendations for its improvement. An electronic database of these reports will be designed in order to store, track and quantify information on corruption proofing process/progress.The project will create and maintain a web-based Legislation Integrity Portal where each report of the “proofed” legal acts will be entered. These legal acts will be will be monitored in order to see whether the recommendations are taken into account or not. A rating system of “corruption risk” will be applied along with the corruption proofing report, and the portal will rank the legal acts according to this rating so the most vulnerable areas can be monitored. The Portal will serve, among other things, also for informing and educating the public on these issues.

As a result, the project aims at creating a set of tools which can be used by experts in the field of drafting legislation such as :

• Manual for Corruption proofing
• Set of procedures to apply when drafting legislation
• Stadard reports to conduct corruption proofing of legislation
• An electrocinc database oc orruption proofing reports

To oversee the implementation of the several phases of the "Corruption Proofing" project, IDRA will establish a specific center within the Institute called, the Legislative and Administrative Integrity Center (LAIC). The center will be fully in charge of implementing the Corruption Proofing of Legislation Project.  The center will be responsible for creating the resources (methodologies, manuals and procedures) to be used by public servants dealing with draft laws. It will provide expert trainings to governmental units (Central and Local) and other institutions on Corruption Proofing of legislation so that the techniques of spotting corruption risks can be implemented in the places of origin (where the draft legal acts are being produced). In this regard, the main beneficiaries of this project are expected to be :

1. Legal Offices of Line Ministries and Independent Institutions
2. Albanian Parliament
3. Civil Society Actors
4. Business Community
5. Public at large
6. Legal Experts Community

The expected outputs of the "Corruption Proofing" project are  a)A system of Corruption Proofing of Legislation built in order to minimize the risk of corruption allowed by legislation b) Line Ministries that produce legislation effectively use the system of Corruption Proofing; c) The Albanian Parliament effectively uses the system of Corruption Proofing; d)The public at large, as well as other interested society actors are informed, educated  and provided with, legal and practical arguments to lobby or oppose policy and legal changes.