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Rajana Diet wrote in “Al-Akhbar”:
On the 22nd of last month, the law “The Declaration of Financial Disclosure and Interests and Penalty of Illicit Enrichment” was issued. It was assumed that the twenty-second of this month was the expiration of the term for the institutions that would temporarily receive employee permits to stipulate their circulars, however, it seems that the term will be closed for circulars that barely reach the number of fingers of a hand of the 16 required circulars. So far, there are only 3 institutions that have met the deadline, so is it correct to say that “what is written is understood by its title”?
On the 22nd of last month the text of the Law “Declaration of Financial Assets and Interests and Sanction of Illicit Enrichment” was issued, with the number 189. In principle, this issuance is considered a transit card towards implementation, so It becomes binding on all interested parties, be they the bodies in charge of receiving Permits or holders of those permits.
It is true that the law is “recent”, but it did not come out of nowhere. It was preceded many years ago by legislative decrees and laws that revolved around the orbit of illicit enrichment, the first of which was Legislative Decree No. 38, which was issued during the era of the President of the Republic Camille Chamoun in 1953 , and after a year the first law that obliged employees and those of a public service to present permits for their assets followed. Within 46 years of the enactment of Law No. 154 (in 1999), which was closer to a modified version of the previous law and decree, with some modifications. However, nothing has changed. Illicit enrichment continued to be restricted to texts exclusively, as not a single case had been presented in this regard. In addition, the issuance of permits was not mandatory, since the interested parties applied the permits according to their preferences.
After all this path, Law 189 was born. It is true that it was not the first of its kind, but what distinguishes it is that it arrives in an exceptional stage, and is the “fruit” of what the country has lived and lived since last year. Given that this law was not interrupted by what preceded it, but rather was more comprehensive in terms of the statement that the “interested party” must submit, since it canceled everything that contradicts its content and later canceled previous statements, so as not to be satisfied with they.
The law is divided into an introduction and four chapters, divided into 17 articles. In the first chapter, the law deals with the scope of its application and who it affects, while the second chapter delves into the definition of the permit, to whom it is required and to whom the permits are presented. The third chapter determines the crime resulting from illicit enrichment and the duration of the sentence, the final provisions are in the fourth chapter.
In principle, this law requires that “all public employees, except those of the fourth category and below or their equivalent, who are not in charge of the tasks of a higher category, and the members of the educational staff of the Lebanese University and the official schools and institutes “, declare your financial responsibility for them. As well as «employees of the Ministry of Finance and of the customs and real estate departments and the owner, members and employees and employees of the administrative committees and independent and regulatory bodies established by the laws of all ranks and categories if their actions result in economic results”.
Regarding the “obligations” to file the declaration, the employee is obliged to provide a detailed inventory of what he, his wife and his minor children own in Lebanon and abroad. That is, all the “elements of economic responsibility and interests that belong to him and his family”, provided that he presents them on several occasions, first during the first two months from the date of his assumption of public office, provided that he is assigned Every three years to an additional leave and two months before the end of the service, the employee is obliged to present the last leave.
It should be noted here that if the employee had previously submitted a permit based on the 1999 law, the new law deemed all of the above “expired,” meaning that everyone must submit permits. What is important to note here is that with each declaration that the declarant makes, they must explain the differences and the reasons for the previous permissions. As for the party in which these papers are supposed to be deposited, the law establishes that it is the “National Anticorruption Commission.” However, since the Lebanese method links each formation to execution decrees and sectarian appointments, the committee has not yet seen the light, so the law has rectified this reality, which can be prolonged, and temporarily referred the requests to a series of references, each according to their competence. Thus, for example, the files of the President of the Republic, the Speaker of the Council of Representatives, the Prime Minister, the President and the members of the Economic and Social Council are archived in the Presidency of the Constitutional Council. In this line, the rest walked. The law ordered the authorities responsible for receiving the permits to issue a circular inviting employees to prepare their permits within one month from the date of publication of the law.
The law did not leave a legal vacuum by which the forced to declare escaping from the “duty”, since it bound the presentation of the declaration according to the rules and conditions for obtaining their “quotas”, their compensation and everything related to their rights economical.
In this measure, the law was decisive. Otherwise, the fine that awaits the defaulters begins with stopping “paying salaries and fees”, which carries “a prison sentence of six months to a year, as well as a fine ranging between 10 and 20 official minimum wages” . It presents a false statement, “and a full general prison term and a fine ranging between 5 and 10 times the minimum wage for those who disclose the confidentiality of the permit.”
As for those who are proven against the crime of enrichment, that is the penalty of article fourteen of the Penal Code, which establishes that “It will be punished with a custodial sentence of three to seven years and a fine of thirty to two hundred, the salary! Official minimum for those who commit the crime of illicit enrichment ”!
In principle, the law contained in itself all the “aspirations” of the legislator, since it did not leave a window of escape for the corrupt. However, in all cases, it remains so far ink on paper “about which we know nothing but good.” As for the application, there is no place for evaluation as long as nothing happens.
However, some examples can demonstrate what this “writing” entails. Take, for example, the content of article 6 of chapter two, which establishes that the authorities temporarily responsible for receiving permits must issue a circular urging employees to submit their files. At a time when the end of the term is approaching (until the 22nd of this month), only three of the 16 entities When “preparing” for the circulars, including the House of Representatives, the Civil Service Council, whose circular is It is supposed to be issued soon, and the Constitutional Council that issued its circular after an employee “informed” him of the issuance of the circular. What’s worse than that is that this council did not commit to reading the law, so they issued a circular requiring employees to obtain permission related to the 1999 law!
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