Obtaining whistleblower status in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not easy, and those who have succeeded claim that they have not been adequately protected from discrimination, demotions to lower-ranking positions, disciplinary proceedings, threats, blackmail and dismissal.
However, after years of struggle, several of them have managed to obtain protection and fight for their jobs. Whistleblowers we spoke to say that reporting corruption has cost them much more than they anticipated, and they didn’t feel like fighters against injustice as much as victims of the system. They also believe that whistleblower protection laws are not effective and that their amendments won’t be of great benefit until society becomes aware that corruption in B&H must be eradicated.
Thirteen years ago, B&H established the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight against Corruption (APIK), and the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers in B&H institutions, under which this agency began to operate, was adopted after three years. Since then, only 11 people have been granted whistleblower status. Twenty-two more individuals have sought help from APIK, but they have not been granted whistleblower status.
After several attempts to obtain answers from APIK regarding whistleblowers and the reasons why most of them have not been granted protection, they stated that the whistleblowers did not meet the requirements. They said they issued instructions to the employer to remedy harmful actions in four cases but did not disclose details about whom it concerned and what the harmful actions were.
The agency itself acknowledges practical and legal deficiencies in mechanisms for reporting corruption and believes that the law needs to be changed.
Elvis Kondžić, the new director of APIK who replaced the longtime director Sead Liska, says that the agency’s work has been “frozen” for years and that they have changed much in the past year since he took over.
There is no unified law in B&H, and the existing ones are deficient
„The existing law does not provide sufficient protection to whistleblowers. More attention is given to procedures than substance. Therefore, the law must be aligned with European directives. We must improve protection measures and work hard on law enforcement. At the state level, obtaining whistleblower status is very difficult and discourages people from reporting. We need to mitigate this to encourage people“, Kondžić says, adding that citizens are demotivated because they are unprotected and fear retaliation, and because they believe that reporting corruption has no effect.
Despite B&H adopting the whistleblower protection law ten years ago, it still does not apply to everyone, nor do the other two laws adopted for certain parts of country.
The Law from 2013 defines a “whistleblower” as an individual employed in B&H institutions and legal entities established by B&H institutions, who in good faith submits a report due to justified suspicion or circumstances of corruption in any B&H institution.
Other individuals who may come into possession of knowledge and information about corruption in B&H institutions are not protected by the law.
What do whistleblowers say?
Whistleblower Sanjin Sinanović, who worked as a lawyer at the Central Bank of B&H, says he experienced all the hardships that someone who opposes deeply rooted habits of a corrupt system can face. Seven years after his dismissal and corruption report, he was reinstated on January 29th this year by a ruling of the B&H Court.
“I reported corruption at the end of 2017 and filed a report with the Prosecutor’s Office of B&H as well as the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA). I opened the doors of hell for myself. It was about irregularities in public procurement and employment. Until then, I was an impeccable career officer, but after the report, I became a record holder in the number of disciplinary proceedings. There were six with a total of ten charges. They suspended me, demoted me to a lower position, and finally fired me”, Sinanović says.
He says he reached out to APIK for help five times but did not receive whistleblower status because they were not confident in his “good faith”. Then he was fired, so they couldn’t grant him that status anymore, as it is only awarded while the whistleblower is still in employment.
“Seven years after reporting corruption, I couldn’t get a job; I always came second in the competition lists. From my experience, whistleblowers are the unwanted children of an unwanted marriage. We are hostages of this state trapped in a corrupt system”, says Sinanović.
One of them got status but also dismissal
Whistleblower status was obtained by Emir Mešić, an employee of the Indirect Taxation Authority of B&H. He reported corruption to this institution in 2017, and after three disciplinary proceedings, he was dismissed for disclosing official secrets.
“The whistleblower status didn’t help me. The court revoked my rights under the Whistleblower Protection Act and decided that it was legitimate for the director to prohibit me from reporting corruption. During the trial, I experienced a surreal situation when the judge asked me if I had asked the director for permission to publicly report corruption”, says Mešić.
He says he communicated with APIK several times, and he obtained whistleblower status only after the intervention of the Office of the High Representative in BiH. He believes that the reporting process is very complicated and adversely affects the reporter, encouraging them to give up.
“APIK is a passive observer, and they are not involved in the fight against corruption. They have powers that they do not use. Political pressure is too great for it to be a agency with integrity. The fight is carried out by whistleblowers alone. Many colleagues wanted and tried to report, but they failed because they were stopped”, says Mešić.
“Good faith” is crucial
After a two-year suspension, the Indirect Taxation Authority of B&H reinstated whistleblower Danko Bogdanović to work in 2015. As the head of the Brčko customs office, he reported corruption after APIK’s instructions in 2013, which exposed him to retaliation resulting in suspension.
It was unequivocally established that he, as an employee of the Indirect Taxation Authority, reported corruption in “good faith” and that the employer took retaliatory measures using unlawful disciplinary proceedings initiated by the desire of the Indirect Taxation authority to retaliate against the corruption reporter.
Bogdanović told us in a brief telephone conversation that “he cannot talk to journalists and that he has been at his job since the day he was reinstated”. When asked if the retaliation against him had stopped, he simply said it had.
BiH is the most corrupt country in Europe after Russia and Ukraine
Damjan Ožegović, a researcher and legal affairs associate at Transparency International B&H, says that the situation in B&H, as well as its statistics, is discouraging. He notes that according to the Corruption Perceptions Index in Europe, B&H is the third most corrupt, right after Russia and Ukraine.
“People generally do not seek protection from institutions responsible for fighting corruption, nor are they motivated to report it. It is more often reported to the media and non-governmental organizations that have taken over the state’s job. Potential whistleblowers see that they will suffer severe consequences and that those who have been granted whistleblower status have not been spared,” explains Ožegović.
He says that without sanctioning corruption, there is no clear message or intention from institutions and the judiciary to combat this deeply rooted phenomenon.
“The judiciary, which should be key in the fight against corruption in B&H, has become a source of problems. It fails to tackle corruption within its ranks, so it is clear why it cannot fight this phenomenon in society. No institution in B&H deals with corruption reports as it should; it is avoided and consciously neglected”, says Ožegović.
Ombudsman BiH: The purpose of the law is not fulfilled
Predrag Raosavljević, head of the Department for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination at the Ombudsman’s Office of B&H, says they have encountered only a few whistleblowers.
“A negative court judgment against a person who reports corruption is a discouraging message for reporting corruption because if you do not have system institutions to protect you, the question arises, what is the point of reporting. Our experiences show that the purpose of these laws is not fulfilled, there are no reports, and people are not encouraged to take that step”, says Raosavljević.
When asked if there is a solution to this situation in B&H, he says it is not so much in changing the law as in its implementation.
“An individual is often left to fend for themselves and has no special protection, only moral satisfaction. That’s why I think it’s most important for APIK to take a more proactive role and make it easier for people to report corruption. Whistleblower status must be enriched with real protection,” says Raosavljević.
Whistleblowers are unprotected throughout the region
Explaining that the situation is the same or very similar throughout the region, as well as in many countries worldwide, Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Political Studies in Belgrade (Serbia), Srđan Korać, in his book “Public Administration in Moral Gap” states that the judicial process for reinstatement usually lasts long enough to financially exhaust the civil servant and his family, while the state appears as the other side in the process with much greater resources and a desire to prolong the dispute.
“Whistleblowers mostly face threats motivated by attempts of managers to cover up revealed abuses, and when they initiate protection proceedings, they realize that in the ultimate outcome, they become victims of a system that is well-conceived but simply does not work in an environment of strongly politicized managerial strata of public administration,” writes Korać in his book.
Commenting on the time span between the publication of his book and the situation we are in today, Korać says that in an administrative culture influenced by an immoral majority and moral indifference stemming from extensive corruptive and informal practices, whistleblowing is devalued as an anti-corruption tool.
“Despite decades of modernization of public administration in Serbia and B&H, whistleblowing is still a relatively unusual act of individual moral and civic courage. Many risks threaten an honest public servant. The hostile nature of the work environment for potential whistleblowers is linked to the hidden formational power of the administrative culture embedded in the unspoken rules of public administration,” says Korać.
