The Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest in Institutions at the Level of Bosnia and Herzegovina fined Marija Ćosić, advisor to the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, Marinko Čavara, at its last session, with 5,000 BAM due to conflict of interest. The Commission also called upon Ćosić to resign.
This occurred following a complaint by Transparency International in BiH that was submitted in July of last year, and the matter was removed from the agenda several times because commission members could not reach a position on this issue.
In Ćosić’s case, the issue is that in addition to her position as advisor to Marinko Čavara at the state level, she simultaneously holds the position of councilor in the Municipal Council of Busovača. Since the state law clearly stipulates that holders of public functions and their advisors may hold only one public function, while the federal Law on Conflict of Interest considers “elected officials” to include representatives in municipal councils, it is clear that Ćosić has long held incompatible functions.
However, at several commission sessions, there was debate over whether determining incompatible functions requires a person to be registered full-time in both positions, and this matter was returned for revision several times, which clearly indicates potential problems in interpreting the new law, as well as attempts to obstruct the imposition of sanctions.
Therefore, it should be emphasized that from the standpoint of conflict of interest, in addition to receiving double income from the budget, it is also problematic that officials at lower levels can use the resources of BiH institutions to achieve party, personal, or political benefits.
This decision by the commission is significant because in recent years there has been a widespread practice whereby numerous state officials hold multiple functions at lower levels of government. Therefore, TI BiH calls upon the commission to act on other complaints by TI BiH that were submitted due to violations of the provisions of the new state law on conflict of interest and which are still awaiting resolution.
