#02 PREVENT ABUSES IN ELECTION CAMPAIGN FINANCING

By accepting the Copenhagen Document, the state undertook to provide the necessary legal guarantees that would enable political parties and organisations to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by authorities (CD 7.6). The Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice states that the financing of political parties, candidates and election campaigns must be transparent (VC I.2.3.d), and that the principle of equality may sometimes lead to a limit on funding for political parties. (I.2.3.e). In order for these standards to be met, it is necessary to undertake the following:

1.  Limit the use of funds foreseen for the regular operation of political entities for the purposes of the election campaign

   Amendments to the Law on Financing Political Activities from 2014 enabled political entities to use the funds they receive for their regular work for election campaign expenses. In this way, the possibility was introduced to use taxpayers’ funds for a purpose other than the initial one. Such legal possibility leads to inequality of political entities and the creation of large differences and gaps between political parties that have many years of experience in the Assembly, and newly formed groups of citizens and other political entities that do not have their representatives in the Assembly. Therefore, it is necessary to amend the provision from the Law on Financing Political Activities that allows spending funds intended for regular work to finance the campaign (article 24, paragraph 4) and to limit bz the Law the amount of these resources.

2.  Prescribe by law the content of the final and preliminary report on election campaign expenses

   It is necessary to supplement Article 29 of the Law on Financing Political Activities in such a way that the content of the final and preliminary report on election campaign expenses would be prescribed in more detail.

   The current legal solution prescribes the content of the report with insufficient precision with reference to a by-law (Rulebook) issued by the Director of the Agency. In order to ensure the realisation of the principle of legal certainty, it is necessary to prescribe in more detail the content of the report on election campaign expenses, while the director of the Anti-Corruption Agency shall retain the authority to adopt a Rulebook prescribing the report form and manner of submitting reports.

3.  Introduce a ban on organising charity activities by political subjects

   In addition to the existing ban on financing activities of a humanitarian nature during the election campaign, it is also necessary to prescribe a ban on the organisation and implementation of such activities by political subjects, i.e. explicitly prescribe that such activities cannot be considered election campaign activities in the sense of Article 2 Paragraph 5 of the Law on Financing of Political Activities. In practice, it has been shown that political subjects declare before the Agency that charity activities are not financed by the political subject but by members and sympathisers, and the very political subjects use such activities for their own promotion during the election campaign. In this sense, it is necessary to completely prevent the organisation and implementation of activities of a humanitarian nature by amending the Law on Financing of Political Activities. The Law on Political Parties stipulates that political parties are formed “for the purpose of achieving political goals through the democratic shaping of the political will of citizens and participation in elections”, and not for the purpose of organising and implementing activities of a humanitarian nature.