Ms. Repetto – Chilean economist – visits the High Authority

On Monday 26 September, Ms. Andrea Repetto visited the High Authority. Ms. Repetto is a Chilean economist and a founding member of the Research Center “Espacio Publico”, a structure participating in the definition of public policies and involved in the fight against corruption of elites. During her study visit in France, Ms. Repetto thus wanted to gather information on the High Authority’s missions and results since its creation.

Like a certain number of countries around the world over the past couple of years, in 2016, the Chilean scheme of asset declaration for public officials was reformed. Before the law of 2016, only high public officials from the executive branch had to fill in an asset declaration and to submit it to the relevant Ministry. Nonetheless, the law provided for neither controls nor sanctions. The law of 2016 creates a mandatory online declaration system to the Contraloria General (Court of Auditors) for a list of public officials that is similar to the field covered by the High Authority. One of the main differences lays in the fact that Chilean declarative obligations not only cover the spouse but also adult children.

After a presentation of the context of the creation and missions of the High Authority, the discussion focused notably on the College members’ mandate, the complex operationalization of the conflict of interests definition, and the revolving doors regulations for former members of the Government and locally elected officials. Ms. Repetto also wanted to address citizens’ alerts and whistleblowers’ protection while the bill on transparency, fight against corruption and modernization of economic life is being discussed at the Parliament to complete the current scheme to fight against corruption in France (whistleblowers’ protection, lobbying regulation, public financial reporting of multinational companies, corruption of foreign public officials, etc.).