There is a need for a dedicated constitutional body, on the lines of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), for quick disposal of corruption cases, senior Supreme Court advocate G Venkatesh Rao said today.
Organised by India International Centre, Integrity Initiatives International and Carnegie Mellon University in Australia, the forum brought together prominent legal thinkers, civil society activities, and journalists.
Rao spoke about the need for setting up a Corruption Commission, in India, which must be a public body approachable by the citizens at large and must have a constitutional status like that of National Human Rights Commission, and Election Commission of India, a statement issued by the organisers said.
He said freedom of press and protection to activists and media are vital to combating corruption.
"The approach to be adopted is that governments and businesses must do more to encourage free speech, independent media, political dissent and an open and engaged civil society. There should be minimisation of regulations on media, including traditional and new media, and ensure that journalists can work without fear of repression or violence," Rao said.
He said efforts should be to promote laws that focus on access to information, to ensure transparency and accountability.
Governments must not only invest in an appropriate legal framework for such laws, but also seriously commit to their implementation, Rao said.
"The real independence of India will come when it becomes a corruption-less society," former attorney general Soli Sorabjee said at the beginning of the roundtable discussion.
Narinder Singh, former Chairman of the International Law Commission and former legal adviser to the Ministry of External Affairs, said that corruption is "an insidious plague, whose effects are most destructive in the developing world, and undermine governments' ability to deliver public services."
According to the World Bank, "20-40 billion USD are estimated to be the proceeds of corruption and yet in the 15 years since the UN Convention against Corruption has been enacted, only USD 5 billion has been returned to the countries concerned," he said.
For his part, Professor Emil Bolongaita, distinguished service professor of public policy and management at Carnegie Mellon University, said that "problem of corruption is not the absence of laws against corruption, but the inability of legal institutions to apply the law against corrupt officials and accomplices".
He said that it is increasingly difficult for countries to tackle grand corruption because of the complex nature of the crime involving high ranking officials, multinational corporations, and banks in secrecy jurisdiction moving illicit assets across jurisdictions.
Bolongaita explained that "the idea of the international anti-corruption court would be to serve as court of last resort for grand corruption".
The court, he said, "would investigate and prosecute officials and accomplices when their home countries' institutions are unable or unwilling to prosecute them".
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