Proposal for tougher sanctions on MP bribery might be watered down

Sasi would give Parliament exclusive right to initiate prosecution

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Pekka Viljanen, Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Turku, does not believe that a planned toughening of legislation on the bribery of Members of Parliament will lead to actual prosecutions.
      “The nice explanation for this is that Members of Parliament are so honest that they will not accept such benefits”, Viljanen says.
      Viljanen was a member of the working group at the Ministry of Justice, which prepared draft legislation on the matter. The draft was given to Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) on Friday.
     
Viljanen says that the bill put forward on Friday contains problems regarding the burden of proof.
      “It is not impossible to get sufficient evidence, but I would guess that it would be rare.
      He also suspects that Parliament may not want to give public prosecutors the right to make indictments of bribery against MPs, preferring to keep the decision in Parlaiment’s own hands, just like in 2002 - the last time that legislation was on bribery of Members of Parliament was debated.
     
This suspicion was confirmed by the chairman of the Parliament’s constitutional law committee, Kimmo Sasi (Nat. Coalition Party), who said that it would be best to give Parliament discretion on whether or not to prosecute MPs.
      “I would not directly leave it in the hands of prosecutors”, he said on Friday to Helsingin Sanomat.
      Parliamentary immunity is secured under the Finnish constitution in such a way that an MP cannot be prosecuted for opinions stated in Parliament.
      Viljanen feels that it would be very contrived and agenda-driven to extend the constitutional protection to crimes of bribery.
     
The new bill sets as a condition of punishment that an MP has received a gift or benefit that “tends to impair confidence in the impartiality of executing the office” of an MP.
      According to Viljanen, under the proposed legislation, even a small gift to an MP could be enough to raise suspicion that a crime has been committed, if the giver has a strong political interest.
      This could include something like attending the Pori Jazz Festival as a guest of Fennovoima, one of the companies seeking a licence for the construction of a new nuclear reactor. Last summer Fennovoima had its own tent at Pori Jazz, with Members of Parliament included among the guests..
      The government is expected to propose granting a licence for the construction of a new nuclear reactor next year.
      Many other companies, who are dependent on Parliamentary decisions are known to offer lunches and breakfasts, and other gifts to Members of Parliament.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stricter provisions concerning bribery of members of Finnish Parliament (20.10.2009)
  Finland given a workover in Transparency International corruption report (28.9.2009)
  Finnish corruption: subtle, but by no means non-existent (4.8.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat