Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 14th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview IX. Working Group on Integrity in Public Governance Author(s) Jelena Jerinic Union University Novi Beograd Serbia Jelena Jerinic, LL.M. Title First steps in implementation of codes of conduct for local government officials in Serbia File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract The paper will lean on and build upon the findings of the paper “Development of codes of conduct for local government officials in Serbia: A beginner’s case”, which the author presented during the 2005 EGPA Annual Conference in Bern in September 2005, within the Study Group on Ethics and Integrity of Governance (the paper is available at http://www.egpa2005.com). At this moment 140 local assemblies - councils (out of 167) have adopted codes of conduct, applicable to all local “functionaries”, i.e. all elected and appointed local officials. Serbian local codes are unique in the sense that they include a wider circle of officials to whom the codes should apply. In other words, the codes analysed here apply to local elected representatives (local councillors and mayors), members of local boards (executive bodies headed by the mayor), heads of local administrations as well as managers of local public enterprises and institutions. In other words, it applies to all persons other than local administration employees. The codes adopted in towns and municipalities stem from a Model Code developed by the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, the local government association, where the author is presently occupies the position of Advocacy Team Leader. The paper will attempt to evaluate the first several months of codes’ implementation in Serbian municipalities (most of the codes were adopted in the first six months of 2005). It will mainly look into three aspects – the process of their adoption (final text of the code adopted, the (non)existence and flow of debate in the local assembly; the majority by which the code was adopted); the attitude of local officials towards the code (its fact of its adoption, its significance in general and its contents; existing practice (cases) of implementation. Since the codes are actually a form of self-regulation and lack proper legal sanctions, it will be especially important to analyse the first two aspects - the attitudes of those “regulating themselves”. The paper will use the results of surveys about to be conducted in several pilot municipalities, within the framework of a project initiated by the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities and supported by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Also, where necessary, additional empirical research on aspects described above will be conducted by the author and the project team. As the previous paper, this one will also try to provide a comparative perspective, by comparing the Serbian situation to available data from other countries – primarily “post-communist” countries of Central and Eastern, who themselves embarked the process of establishing ethical and integrity standards for local officials.
