ASSESSING A COUNTRY’S POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Parliament

1. Structure and functioning of the Parliament including the competences of the Parliamentary Committees and the speaker of the Parliament, the prerogatives and competences of the Parliament with respect to control of the executive power, and of the procedures for the adoption of legislation

2. Parliament's rules of procedure and their implementation.

3. How is the Parliament exercising its legislative functions? Is there an obligation to analyse the fiscal impact of new legislation before it is adopted? How is this process working in practice?

4. Competences of the committees. How much time is dedicated to scrutiny of legislation by the committees?

5. How many political parties are registered in the country? How many of these are represented in Parliament? What percentage of parliamentarians are (a) women and (b) from ethnic and national minorities?

6. Legal provisions and institutional arrangements in place for the election of members of Parliament and the rules applying to their replacement in the course of their mandate.

7. Provisions in place defining the persons having the right to vote in parliamentary, presidential and local elections and the arrangements regarding voters' registers.

8. Overall framework for party and campaign financing, the rules guaranteeing its transparency and  details on the monitoring of its implementation. Do the existing reporting obligations under the Electoral Code for public funding of political parties during elections also cover private funding sources? What mechanisms are in place for reporting private and public party financing funding.

9. How parliamentary immunity is defined and applied ?

Government

10. Structure and functioning of the government. Which is the legal basis for the structure and functioning of the government?

11. Arrangements within the government for strategic planning and monitoring. Is there a government programme? How is it prepared, what is the time-line for its implementation and how is its implementation monitored?

12. How is the legislative programme of the government prepared and monitored?

13. What types of legal acts exist? How and by whom are they adopted? How are they prepared? What forms of consultation are used, both inside the government (inter-ministerial coordination) and outside (stakeholders)? What mechanisms exist to monitor the effective implementation of legal acts by public bodies (e.g. reporting requirements, inspections)?

14. What mechanisms exist for inter-ministerial coordination? Specifically, what mechanisms exist to link strategic planning and budgeting, in each Ministry, at governmental level?

15. What systems are in place to monitor implementation of policies and laws and to receive feedback?

16. What is the current structure of local government? What is the local electoral system.

17. Is there an association of municipalities and which are its functions and its administrative capacity?

18. Is there a clear delimitation of powers between the central and the local government level?

19. Which administrative and/or judicial structures at national level are responsible for supervising the local government? Has there been any strengthening of these structures recently?

20. Is there a detailed plan for transfer of powers to local governments? Are there plans for further decentralisation, where appropriate.

21. How are fiscal competences shared between central and local government in terms of ensuring that local governments have the funds needed to fulfil their responsibilities? Have measures been taken to strengthen the financial management capacity of the municipalities?

22. When the fiscal impact of the implementation of new legislation is prepared, is the impact on the budget of municipalities identified and taken into account?

23. How are the political boundaries of the municipalities regulated and defined?

24. How is the state property, including real estate, distributed between central and local government? Which structures are responsible for the management of state property?

25. Which administrative structures are responsible to carry out local-self government reform?

26. Are municipalities consulted in any formal way in the context of preparation of legislation which will either affect them or in which they will be involved in the implementation?

Public Administration

27. Structures and bodies of the state administration including independent agencies, the source of their financing (state budget or other), their mission, organisation chart, number of their statutory positions and the number of current employees and their functions.

28. Is there a Strategy and an Action Plan for the reform of the Public Administration in place? If so, when was it adopted, what are the main objectives and what is the state of play of their implementation? How progress is measured (indicators)? What were the shortcomings noticed in the implementation process and how were they overcome?

29. Which bodies/institutions are involved in the definition, coordination, implementation and monitoring of the Public Administration Reform Strategy? Is there a central body or ministry in charge of public administration reform?

30. How are civil servants and public employees recruited (on national, regional and local level)? Are recruitement and promotion based on merit and competence? What is the status of public employees? Is there legal framework regulating their status, job classification system, career promotion system, accountability and salaries of civil servants and public employees?

31. Are there training institutions for civil servants?

32. Is there a Code of Ethics applicable to Civil Servants? If so, how is its application monitored?

33. How are the management and middle management recruited and for how long? Who are those that are politically appointed? Is there  a delimitation between political and expert/management appointments in the public administration? Are there safeguards against the politicisation of the civil service?

34. Is there a transparent legal or regulatory basis for actions taken by civil servants? In particular, how is impartiality and non-discrimination of actions by civil servants ensured?

35. How is accountability of administrative bodies ensured (e.g. are administrative bodies accountable or answerable for their actions to other administrative, legislative or judicial authorities, and subject to scrutiny by others)? Does the legal framework comprise regulations concerning disciplinary measures against civil servants?

36. Role of the Ombudsman in the oversight of administrative bodies. Can judicial proceedings be initiated in case the Ombudsman's recommendations are not followed by the administration.

37. What guarantees exist for the independence of the Ombudsman?

38. Is access to all official documents granted to the Ombudsman? Is he entitled to suspend the execution of an administrative act if he determines that the act may result in irreparable prejudice to the rights of a person? If so, how is this implemented in practice? Does the Ombudsman have the right to contest the conformity of laws with the Constitution and, if so, how is this implemented in practice?

39. What systems are in place to monitor implementation of policies and laws and to receive feedback? Is there an inspection of the public administration and how does it function?

40. What is done to ensure that the public service is open and transparent? Can any citizen affected by an administrative action find out the basis for the action?

41. What are the procedures to guarantee citizens’ rights of recourse against public service actions? e.g. parliamentary committees, ombudsman's office, internal and external audit, inspectorates, standard-setting authorities). To what extent are the recommendations formulated by these bodies (particularly the ombudsman's office) taken into account by the Government?

Anti-Corruption

42. Is there any specific training on combating corruption or training on ethics for public officials, the judiciary and the law enforcement? a) How and by whom is relevant staff trained? b) Which accompanying offences (e.g. fraud, tax offences and money laundering) are covered by the training?

43. Public offices: is equal access guaranteed to all citizens? Do regulations exist which are objective and founded on merit-based criteria (in terms of adequate salaries, social rights, rotation in sensitive posts, financial disclosure obligations during office, rules on conflict of interest)?

44. Is integrity, accountability and transparency of public administration assured, e.g. by means of quality management tools, auditing and monitoring of standards?

45. Do effective codes of conduct, and other measures enhancing corporate social responsibility, exist for the private sector to prevent corrupt practices? How are these codes of conducts enforced?

46. Which type of conduct can be sanctioned as corruption? Is active and/or passive bribery sanctioned? In the public and/or private sector? Trading in influence? Corruption of foreign and international public officials? What kind of sanctions exist ?

47. What are the rules guaranteeing the avoidance of conflict of interest in the performance of officials serving in the government, the administration and the judiciary? Does the legislation provide for public declarations of wealth and/or interest for the mentioned officials? How are such declarations assessed, checked and followed-up? What are the rules for members of parliament?

48. Do precise codes of conduct exist, which indicate what is and what is not allowed, and which are subject to a permanent monitoring process? How are these codes of conduct enforced?

49. Are there clear and transparent rules on funding of political parties, social partners and other interest groups? Are these entities subjected to external financial control in order to avoid conflicts of interest between their representatives, public officials and the private sector? What is the practical experience with implementation of these rules?

50. What is the state of play in adopting a new law on party funding?

51. Does legislation on free access to information exist? What is the experience with its implementation?

52. Public procurement, privatisation, large budgetary expenditure, construction, land-use planning: a) How are these areas monitored? Is the monitoring done efficiently and by an independent body? Is there sufficient follow-up to irregularities? b) Is there parliamentary oversight? c) How is financial control regulated? Is there a functioning auditing authority?