Narrative Report on the Analysis of Relevant National Legislation in the Field of Public Integrity

Transparency International Romania is a partner in the project "NIAct - Updating legislation in the field of integrity and providing support to authorities and declarants in transitioning to digital asset and interest declaration," carried out by the National Integrity Agency and the Ministry of Justice.

The premise underlying the development of the narrative report was the need for an overview of national legislation in the field of public integrity to identify specific and systemic deficiencies within this legal framework. This aspect can be achieved by synthesizing relevant regulations in the field of integrity for each of the 39 categories of persons obligated to declare assets and interests, according to Article 1 paragraph (1) of Law no. 176/2010.

The analysis was conducted by experts designated by Transparency International Romania and the National Integrity Agency, through three stages:

Stage I - centralization of legislative acts from domestic legal order relevant to public integrity;

Stage II - separate compilation of a table for each category of persons subject to the obligation to declare assets and interests, transposing legal provisions regarding:

• incompatibilities;
• conflicts of interest;
• asset declaration;
• sanctions for violating integrity obligations;
• deadlines/measures to prevent integrity incidents.

Stage III - synthesis within the narrative report of the regulations transposed in the individual tables prepared in Phase II and highlighting identified legislative deficiencies.

Main conclusions resulting from the analysis

Apart from the identified specific deficiencies, the overall analysis of national legislation also reveals some systemic shortcomings of relevant laws in the field of integrity:

Regulations regarding incompatibility and conflict of interest targeting categories of persons mentioned in Article 1 paragraph (1) of Law no. 176/2010 are scattered across an extremely large number of legislative acts, making compliance and monitoring of violations of obligations established by these legislative acts difficult.

Despite the large number of legislative acts affecting integrity, numerous situations of legislative gaps persist where the law does not provide for cases of incompatibility or conflicts of interest in which persons obligated to declare assets and interests may find themselves.

Special laws containing relevant regulations in the field of public integrity do not draw a clear enough distinction between the notion of incompatibility/prohibition and conditions of access/eligibility to the respective position.

Lack of a unified framework guiding the suspension and interruption of prescription terms regarding the activity of evaluating asset declaration, conflicts of interest, and incompatibilities, as well as engaging administrative liability for violating obligations relevant to integrity.

Sectoral Analysis - General Conclusions

Following the sectoral analysis of domains related to education, health, and public officials, the need for legislative intervention in public integrity regulation in these areas has been outlined, addressing:

• Clarifying the meaning and content of certain legal situations of incompatibility or conflicts of interest, according to the analyzed cases;
• Equitable and proportional regulation of situations of incompatibility and conflicts of interest in the three domains, especially considering the existing "legislative gap" in the field of education;
• The clear distinction between cases of administrative incompatibility and conflicts of interest falling under the verification and sanctioning competence of the National Integrity Agency and, respectively, the access conditions or other prohibitions applicable to relevant positions within the three domains, subject to the verification and sanctioning of internal or external structures engaging administrative-disciplinary liability for these categories of persons;
• The simplification of legislation in the matter, by consolidating the relevant provisions of each sectorial domain analyzed into the body of a single legislative act regulating public integrity.

The National Integrity Agency implements the NIAct project in partnership with the Ministry of Justice and Transparency International Romania, in the period February 2022 - December 2023.

The overall objective of the project is to inventory all legislative acts and update the legal framework in the field of integrity, focusing on incompatibilities, conflicts of interest, unjustified assets, and the asset and interest declaration system, based on the needs of stakeholders, substantiated by sociological analyses and research.

The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund through the Operational Programme for Administrative Capacity 2014 - 2020!