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Description
The aim is to improve fight against corruption through increasing the public sector’s awareness of implementation of relevant international recommendations and standards, mainly those arising from monitoring by the Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe, the OECD Working Group on Bribery and the UN Convention against Corruption which have been criticizing the Czech Republic for insufficient anti-corruption measures. The project is thus necessary and crucial.
The project will be implemented by the Ministry of Justice, with partners Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and Judicial Academy, enabling to organize trainings, workshops and seminars focused on prosecutors and judges. The project target group: judges, prosecutors, public service employees and general public.
Based on an internal assessment of fulfilment of commitments of the Czech Republic arising from its EU membership as well as in the anti-corruption international organizations and working groups, necessity was identified to tackle 3 main topics:
A) Prevention of corruption in the public sector with a focus on conflict of interest
B) Whistleblowers’ protection
C) Codes of Conduct for judges and prosecutors
Key project activities:
1 Comparative studies, internat. conferences and practical brochures
2 Methodologies and consequent trainings (A,B)– ensure education of and increase the awareness among target groups
3 Workshops (B,C)–practical information sharing among target groups
4 Statistical analysis on whistleblowing (B)
5 Media campaign focusing on fight against corruption- spread awareness of fight against
corruption, in particular whistleblowers’ protection and conflict of interests
6 Publicity
7 Management
Summary of project results
The project helped the Ministry of Justice to implement the activities and the outputs that supported the fight against corruption in the Czech Republic and to fulfill international recommendations in this area. It helped to strenghten competencies of respective professionals and to raise the awareness of general public within the area of anti-corruption topics as well. On the other hand, during the implementation of the project the Project Promoter had to face difficult situations connected with COVID 19, with the postponemt of the approval of the „ Whistleblowers Protection Act“ and the lack of interest from judges.
There were elaborated three comparative studies, organized three conferences and other follow-up training and workshops in the area of anti-corruption topics: whistleblowers protection, conflict of interest and ethical codes for judges and prosecutors. A media campaign and promotion of whistleblower protection was carried out. A project logo was created for, which uses the whistleblowing symbol (whistle) and can be used by the Ministry of Justice within the project sustainbility. The above mentioned activities have promoted the fight against corruption and the discussion of key issues. Basic documents (comparative studies, brochures, conference outputs) are also available in English. This enabled, among other things, the involvement of foreign experts in project activities and the acquisition of wider know-how and the use of good practice.
The main outputs of the project were 3 international conferences, 10 trainings and 8 workshops, comparative studies, brochures and a media campaign in the areas of whistleblowers protection (5 trainings, 68 proffesionals trained), conflict of interest (5 trainings, 119 proffesional trained) and ethical codes for judges and prosecutors (16 proffesional invoved). Outputs from the project are published at the address Korupce.cz or Justice.cz. The outputs of the project contributed to greater awareness of the general public about anti-corruption topics and to the expansion of the discussion about them within the professionals. The media campaign for the Whistle-blowers´Protection Law took place (a thousand of state and local government officials affected by whistleblowers´protection information campaign).