Days filled with international meetings

The end of October and the beginning of November 2017 were marked by the reception of three foreign delegations.

Firstly, on 25 October, Mr. Dmitry Gudkov, candidate for the 2018 Moscow mayoral election, visited the High Authority. After graduating in journalism from Moscow State University in 2001 and in economics from the Russian Diplomatic Academy, he became involved in politics early on thanks to his family background. Indeed, his father was himself a member of parliament. Up until 2015, Mr. Gudkov had a very active blog on LiveJournal, on which he published anti-corruption investigations. He also wrote on the website of the independent radio Echo of Moscow. Moreover, Mr. Gudkov is the author of several liberal draft laws.

On 31 October, a Malian delegation, composed of representatives of the Central Office for Combating Illicit Enrichment (OCLEI), the Personal Data Protection Authority, and the Supreme Court, was received by Mr. Antoine Héry, head of compliance and data management, and Emilie Cazenave, international partnerships coordinator of the High Authority. Created in June 2017, OCLEI is an independent institution which aims to uphold the integrity of public life in Mali. The delegation was interested in the functioning of the High Authority and, in particular, the implementation of the French online declaration system. The questions from the OCLEI representatives focused on the processing of asset declarations, personal data management, and related software development, among others.

On 3 November, exchanges with representatives of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) of South Korea closed this intense period of meetings. The director and deputy director of the corruption impact assessment (CIA) division, Mr. Lee Jin-Seog and Ms. Lee Ju-hyun, came to the High Authority to present their work. As part of the CIA mechanism, the ACRC issues recommendations for the improvement of draft laws or reforms. These recommendations intend to better prevent corruption in the area covered by the legislation. Despite their non-binding nature, they are generally followed. Fourteen agents work full time on this mechanism. Furthermore, Mr. Lee Jin-Seog and Ms. Lee Ju-hyun inquired about the scope of the High Authority (which covers 15,800 public officials) as well as the interpretation of the concept of conflict of interest, and the implementation of prevention measures. In addition, they asked questions about indicators of corruption perception in France and about the High Authority’s internal indicators to measure the impact of its work on the confidence of citizens in public officials.

These three visits enabled the High Authority to reinforce its exchanges and cooperation with various international partners from diverse legal traditions, countries and backgrounds.