Source: Politika
In some countries, "whistleblowers" take part in disclosure of corruption scandals and frauds in over 50% of cases
Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information
Several days ago, Mr. Stephen Kohn, Executive Director of the US National Whistleblowers Centre in Washington, visited Podgorica. Of course, even those with minimum knowledge about this issue know that, regardless of "blowers" and a "whistle", the reason for his visit to Montenegro was not a music performance but something completely different. It was a lecture on the subject "Reporting Corruption - Protection of Whistleblowers and Public Interest".
It would be commendable if the public in our country had heard something more about the content of the lecture. The subject is relevant and interesting for our country as well. But even the fact that the institution which Mr. Stephen Kohn represented as the Executive Director exists is associative enough. Because the existence of such an institution warns us about the need to reconsider (in)adequacy of a dominant relation towards the phenomenon of "whistleblowers" or, as we more often call it, insiders in our country.
Of course, I do not think it is appropriate to compare our country with the USA as regards protection of insiders because the USA had first introduced this protection and is undoubtedly the most advanced in this field. But even the fact that it is hard to imagine an efficient concept of the fight against corruption in the modern world if it, among other things, does not imply considerable contribution which insiders or "whistleblowers" give to disclosure of corruption scandals and abuses warns about the need to reconsider relation towards that phenomenon in our country.
Several years ago, the renowned auditing firm "PricewaterhouseCoopers" published the results of a survey carried out in 40 countries worldwide in more than 5,000 institutions and companies. In 43 percent of cases, corruption and frauds were disclosed owing to insiders. In 2008, surveys performed by Professor Dyck of University of Toronto and Professors Morse and Zingales of University of Chicago and a survey performed by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners confirmed extremely high contribution of insiders in the fight against corruption. The latter survey "increased" the contribution of whistleblowers in the disclosure of corruption scandals and frauds to as much as 50 percent, which is much higher than the percentage of activities of formal control mechanisms or police actions. Of course, a state which expects such or similar contribution from insiders must also have laws which would at least protect them against abuses at job, various forms of "responsibilities" and dismissal. Many states have passed such laws a long time ago. For example, the first such law in the USA was passed as early as in the 19th century and about fifty more were subsequently passed. Furthermore, the results of surveys show that high percentage of insiders is guided by non-lucrative motives. Thus, people often fight corruption and crime not to gain something themselves but to protect public interest. Still, some states guarantee to insiders under their laws adequate financial incentives and rewards apart from protection against inconveniences. For example, according to the federal laws of the USA, insiders who disclose corruption or criminal cases in the public sector are not only protected against unpleasant consequences but can also count on 15 to 30 percent of the returned amount of money.
Our country does not even have a similar law. In fact, protection of insiders does not exist in our country at all. And because many people tend to dismiss it as "western foibles", we must not neglect those who spoke out and gave considerable contribution to the fight against corruption in their environments and we must also not forget examples of brutal "revenge". The forthcoming review and adoption of the Data Confidentiality Law and the Amending Law to the Law on Free Access to Information is a good opportunity to make the first important step in protection of insiders by inclusion of adequate arrangements in at least one of these laws. And what makes this opportunity even better is the fact that adequate, well articulated arrangements already exist and that probably the best arrangement, which the Ombudsman submitted in a form of an amendment, is already in the National Assembly. It would be hard to miss another opportunity to at least start building a legal mechanism for protection of insiders. I do not know what could possibly be a justification for that.
