The Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic

Security and prevention

Corruption

Corruption can be described as a relation between two parties, either individuals or institutions, when one of them offers and usually provides the latter with a certain kind of reward in return of an advantage granted or promised by him. The latter than expects to receive the promised reward in cash or in kind for the advantage he had granted to the other side. The phenomenon of corruption belongs among the biggest today's challenges not only in the Czech Republic. Corrupt practices are in many cases closely linked to other forms of crime and can thus contribute to undermining the very foundations of society and authority of public administration. The result is then the loss of citizens' trust in impartiality and professionalism of state institutions but also in the free market environment. At the same time corruption can put in danger both internal and external security of a country. The role of the Security Policy Department of Ministry of Interior in the area of fight against corruption encompasses mainly coordination of the preparations and evaluation of the implementation of a document that provides the Czech Government with an update on anti-corruption activities: the document name is “Report on Corruption in the Czech Republic and on Meeting the Schedule of Measures of the Government Programme of Combating Corruption“ (to be found on the Ministry's web pages under section "documents"). In this context it is a duty of the Department experts to actively monitor and analyze the situation and suggest new legislative, structural or technical adjustments that can be of use in the fight against corruption. Another important task is to convene an inter-ministerial group on corruption and evaluate its outputs. The group is composed of so called "anti-corruption" coordinators representing all the ministries, the Government Office and other central administration authorities. The main purpose of the group is to provide information sharing framework within which its members can inform each other on their attitudes and results linked to their particular anti-corruption activities.

Another activity that does not fall outside Department's focus is a pro-active seeking to reach out to non-governmental organizations that are involved in the fight against corruption, processing and administering projects from both domestic and foreign sources (Transition Facility, twinning light, structural funds of the EU etc.) connected to particular aspects of the struggle against corruption. Ongoing attention is paid to organizing events and participation of Department's experts both in domestic meetings that deal with the issue of the fight against corruption and international conferences on this subject. Not in the last place, it is appropriate to draw the attention to the information activities of the Department - informing both professionals and general public about current developments in the fight against corruption as well as on practical ways of addressing particular allegations of corrupt practices. This includes methodical, training and publication activity, running of the dedicated web site http://www.korupce.cz, phone line and e-mail address in order to keep the citizens informed on all aspects of the fight against corruption and receive feedback from them.

• Documents