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Too little transparency in new Czech law on political party financing

The Czech parliament is currently considering a new law to increase transparency in how political parties are funded. This should have been a reason to celebrate, given that Transparency International Czech Republic and other non-governmental organisations have been working on this for the past two years. But the law could and should have been so […]

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Is Brazil taking a “U-turn”?

In Brazil, some members of the legislature are actively lobbying for a constitutional amendment that would make certain rulings by the Supreme Court subject to congressional approval. Not surprisingly, the current proposal by the Commission on the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship was put forward by members of the Workers’ Party, the main political group affected […]

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No one has all the answers: the positive role of civil society in Russia

Last week the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office sent to Transparency International Russia an official warning to register as a foreign agent. This came because the Prosecutor said TI Russia was shaping public opinion about government policies in the field of law enforcement and had an impact on the adoption by State institutions of laws and […]

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France acts on asset declaration

Reposted from the Transparency International UK blog. It has been striking how far and how quickly France has moved towards asset disclosure by government ministers in recent weeks, with parliamentarians to follow if a new law is passed. Striking also that when political will exists, galvanised by public outrage, transparency is not so hard to […]

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Maldives: Vote Buying Challenges Elections in a Troubled Muslim Democracy

As the Maldives heads for presidential elections in September this year, vote buying, a culture of misuse of state resources, concerns about transparency and integrity of judicial and electoral processes, and unprecedented levels of political polarisation pose immense challenges to this troubled democracy, a pre-election assessment  by Transparency Maldives has found. Vote buying One of […]

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L’affaire Cahuzac: a stain on Hollande’s integrity agenda or a wake-up call?

After four months of denial, Jérôme Cahuzac, former Minister of Budget, finally admitted he had a Swiss bank account in his name, transferred to Singapore in 2009, containing close to €600,000. He has now been placed under investigation over alleged laundering of tax-fraud money. This scandal – which is shaking the French political class and […]

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Armenia: Fighting back at the ballot box

On March 15th the Supreme Court in Armenia annulled the election results from Precinct No. 17/5 in Artashat, where I spent an unforgettable day in mid-February watching ballots being stuffed while I was physically pinned to a wall by a group of thugs. I never thought such overt cheating like ballot stuffing would happen. After […]

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Can you teach how to fight corruption?

Just last week, around 3,000 high school students protested outside Cypriot Parliament  after Cyprus agreed the 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout with the European Union. Break out of demonstrations around the world makes me wonder- what is it that young protesters really do? Express their anger? Why anger? I can‘t help perceiving angry faces […]

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#offshoreleaks: 21st Century Journalism at its best

Around 260 Gigabytes of data from ten tax havens, 2.5 million documents, 130.000 persons from 170 countries concerned – a mega coup. But some questions are still to be answered. Today’s releases regarding #offshoreleaks include everything one can expect from good journalism in the 21st century: Collaboration: 84 journalists worked on the story, coordinated by […]

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Transparency International on the road of technology

US transparency activists taking part in a meeting of staff from Transparency International’s legal advice centres have written about the use of technology to fight corruption. This post was originally published in the Sunlight Foundation‘s blog and is authored by Júlia Keseru. Great news for the open government movement: Transparency International, one of the key international […]

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