Transcript Felicitas Neuhaus - Corruption and Civil Society; How the latter can (and can't) help us tackle the former

CORRUPTION AND CIVIL SOCIETY;
HOW THE LATTER CAN (AND CAN‘T)
HELP US TACKLE THE FORMER
Michael Badham-Jones
Felicitas Neuhaus
Francisco Valenzuela
Research project as part of an internship with the OACU
What we set out to achieve
To what extent do law enforcement and civil
society work together?
What are the perceptions of each other?
How can things be improved?
Why is it important?
Transparency International (TI): ‘Year after year, it’s the same. Our Global Corruption
Barometer confirms that corruption hits poor people hardest — with devastating
consequences. A bribe demanded by a police officer may mean that a family can’t
afford school fees or even food to eat. Findings from Mexico, for instance, show that
the typical poor family must spend one-third of their income on bribes
•
Source: (Transparency International, Poverty and Development,
http://www.transparency.org/topic/detail/poverty_and_development (date
accessed 19/06/2014).
Why is it important?

Holmes (2014) underlines the interdependency of law
enforcement and Civil Society and how action should be
coordinated more

Nick Hildyard (Corner House) agrees: ‘It is often difficult to
really progress a lot of corruption cases, unless you have
very good links on the ground in the places where corruption
is going on. This is something the police often lack’
Our Findings - Law Enforcement
 Need
to keep a healthy distance to civil society in
order not to threaten neutrality
 Civil society organisations are unaware of the
complexity and difficulties of investigations
 Two views seem to exist:
o 1) involve civil society organisations and explain
the difficulties of law enforcement to them
o 2) keep distance to civil society organisations;
primary goal is investigations
Our Findings - Civil Society

Civil society organisations will refer cases to law enforcement

Work with law enforcement to formulate policy recommendations

It is a ‘valued relationship’

Advice to law enforcement: Engage more with citizens to make
them aware how to report/identify corruption
• -> Collaborate with civil society organisations
Concluding remarks

Both sides seem to be open to working with one another,
however there is no an established way of coordination. It
takes two to tango

Draw up statement of intents/memoranda of understanding

‘It is important for anti-corruption campaigners to gain an
understanding of what is required in terms of the burden of
proof.’