Amendments in Anti-Corruption Law and Consequential Reforms

A conflict of interest law is a legal framework designed to prevent individuals from participating in activities that could compromise their decisions or actions due to conflicting interests. The goal of conflict of interest laws is to promote integrity, impartiality, and accountability, and to prevent corruption and undue influence, especially in the public sector. The conflict of interest laws are typically meant to prevent financial, political and ethical conflicts in governance. A financial conflict arises when personal financial interests are preferred over fiduciary role or official financial responsibilities; a political conflict in governance takes place when personal political interests overcome public duties; and an ethical conflict undermines honesty, transparency and fairness. The key tools of conflict of interest laws are disclosures, restraints against different types of conflicts of interests and dissuasive penalties for violation, including fines and imprisonment. 

Pakistan’s National Accountability Ordinance of 1999 is a law on conflict of interest which was amended last year to exclude from its purview the transactions relating to taxation measures, high-level governmental and regulatory decisions, procedural lapses and corruption cases below the threshold of PKR 500 million (USD 1.8 million). Consequently, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the central anti-corruption agency is disentitled to investigate and prosecute the excluded cases; and the federal Accountability Courts are returning such cases to the administration for appropriate action as per the recent amendments. It is not clear who will investigate and prosecute the returned cases in the future; whether it will be the Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) or provincial Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE). Each of ACE and FIA will however find legal and institutional challenges in this regard, including the legal requirement to investigate the excluded cases afresh and file new criminal cases according to the offences given in their respective laws which may or not be the same as provided by the Ordinance of 1999. Besides the need for a strong framework, each of ACE and FIA will be confronted by institutional capacity constraints as they did not have sufficient opportunities in the past to enforce against white-collar crimes.

Debate however continues on the merits and demerits of the recent amendments. Many believe that the excluded cases had hampered effective decision-making in the economic arena while several others hold that the amendments are in limbo for the time being only and the same might be activated in some form at any time in future. Others raise questions about the simple exclusion of specified cases from the purview of the Ordinance of 1999 and the continuing delay in designating and strengthening the successor agency to deal with the excluded cases. While the designation of a new agency and respective framework on excluded cases may essentially be required, there is a greater need to fill the vacuum created by the recent amendments of the Ordinance of 1999 by adding standard obligations against conflict of interest, whether financial, political or ethical. The obligations may include definition of conflict of interest and different situations in which it may arise; prohibitions and ways to avoid conflict of interest; content, process and time for making disclosures; monitoring mechanism; and dissuasive penalties. Should the conventional provisions on conflict of interest contained in official oaths and service conditions now take a new reinforced statutory shape with pre-defined consequences? 

#pakistan #legal #amendment #anticorruption #conflictofinterest #governance #publicsector #administration #criminaljustice