Although 2023 did not bring any ground-breaking changes in the area of transparency and the fight against corruption, and the tail end of the year was more in the mode of reversing the clock, we at Transparency were not bored in our 25th year at all.
Most of our attention was focused on monitoring the campaigns before the parliamentary elections, which we tagged as democratic, but less so as transparent and fair. This conclusion was the result of months of work on analysing data, which we summarised in 60 outputs on campaign issues. We assessed their transparency (only three parties met the higher requirements), pointed out the suspicious manoeuvres of Republika (Republic), Hlas (Voice) or OĽaNO (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) and filed five complaints about violations of the law. The monitoring also resulted in recommendations for changes in practice and legislation.
We have expanded our portal VOLBY.TRANSPARENCY.SK to include a database of thousands of donors to political parties over the past two decades and an overview of state contributions. The latter has shown that Smer (Direction) has already managed to raise more than €100 million from the state for the elections, while SDKÚ (Slovak Democratic and Christian Union) has been the most successful so far in terms of private resources.
In the past year, we also paid great attention to the transparency of the judiciary. In spring we published new evaluation of district judges based on performance data, making it easier for citizens to gauge what to expect in a particular court. A positive sign is that the speed of proceedings is increasing on average, albeit slowly. The evaluation is also available on the portal OTVORENESUDY.SK, where other crime statistics and data on decisions of individual prosecutors have been added in the section dedicated to prosecution offices.
Our analysis of judgments has shown that sanctioning of corruption has finally got off the ground, with a record number of convictions in recent years, including some bigger fish. The results of the analysis have also brought important arguments to feed in the discussion on the government’s plans to abolish the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Up to 95% of corruption cases brought to court by its prosecutors have resulted in convictions of the perpetrators.
We also focused on the impact of disinformation on the rule of law, as after the murders of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová in 2018 and with massive investigations and a strong backlash, corruption cases have become more attractive to the “media alternative”. A key finding of the analysis is that disinformation actors succeeded to convince a substantial part of the public in these topics too, and in some topics the “alternative reality” was even in superior position.
In 2023, we continued to scrutinise the filling of key positions in the state administration, from the publication of the selection procedures in the health sector to the selection of the director of the Slovak National Theatre, members of the Board of the Public Procurement Office or the representative in the European Court of Auditors. Despite all the criticism in recent years, it was only the September elections to become a negative turning point, when the new government reversed course back to the predatory practice of political appointments.
The actions of the new government also kept us busy in other domains in recent weeks. Whether it was their vague and risky programme statement; purges in the police; attacks on the Special Prosecutor’s Office, whistleblower protection and the civil society; or ill-founded attempts to reduce penalties for corruption-related offences. The battle over the shape of the rule of law continues and Transparency will continue to argue for it.
We are very pleased that we managed to keep in touch with the public and our supporters in the past year. Once again, we initiated several discussions on self-government in the regions, gave lectures at universities on the fight against corruption, held public discussions on justice and whistleblowing, and organised two weekend seminars for dozens of active citizens.
We also rejoiced at organisational successes. In September, we invited several dozens of people linked to the story of Transparency to celebrate our 25th birthday; in May, we were awarded the 2nd prize in the international competition for social innovation SozialMarie for the map of owners of tourist facilities KTOVLASTNI.SK, while we also managed to strengthen our team with experienced journalist Martina Hilbertová and the Board of Directors with the preacher Daniel Pastirčák. Our work was once again supported by hundreds of individual donors and dozens of volunteers, which allowed us to address current topics beyond the projects.
Despite all the pitfalls that the Slovak society still faces, it is great to see that for so many people fairness, justice, efficiency and transparency are values worth fighting for.
If you want to join and support Transparency’s activities in the fight for a fairer Slovakia, you can do so here: https://transparency.darujme.sk/spravodlivost
Thank you and we wish you a successful 2024!