4 SUMMARIES OF NATIONAL RESEARCH
WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION IN LITHUANIA KEY FINDINGS
Political and cultural context The Soviet legacy continues to be used often by politicians and public and private sector representatives as an excuse to compare whistleblowers with snitches, ‘plants’ and collaborators – and to justify the reluctance to take political action and grant whistleblowers adequate protection. However, recent studies conducted by TI Lithuania show growing public willingness to participate in anti-corruption initiatives and a positive public perception of whistleblowers as brave and proactive people. The Lithuanian Map of Corruption 2008, released in February 2009, revealed that more than 80 per cent of respondents took a positive view of whistleblowers, but only one respondent in five indicated a personal willingness to engage in anticorruption activities, and a number of those who actually do so is even smaller: around two to three per cent.
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On the other hand, the ConservativeChristian Democrat government elected in autumn 2008 has shown a promising anti-corruption attitude. It included whistleblower protection in its action plan and requested TI Lithuania (which participates in a government anticorruption working group) to develop a whistleblower protection law. Despite the high levels of corruption (and nepotism in particular) in the public sector, as reported by the Lithuanian Map of Corruption 2008, the issue of whistleblowing is gaining attention. Legislation By ratifying major anti-corruption treaties such as the UNCAC and Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption, Lithuania has made commitments to ensuring appropriate whistleblower protection. However, so far there is neither a free-standing national law nor any sectoral legal provisions on whistleblower protection. The only act explicitly concerning whistleblowing, although from a remunerative perspective, is the Government Resolution ‘On Remuneration for Valuable Information about Crimes which include Damage to Property’. Yet this resolution has significant shortcomings and has not been applied in practice. Recent amendments to the resolution proposed by the Ministry of Justice also do not address the issue cohesively. As long as there is no coherent whistleblower protection framework in place, or at least a definition of what whistleblowing is, it is unfeasible to offer any kind of compensation for retaliation or financial losses, or reward for whistleblowing acts.
The current legal framework in Lithuania does not offer any specific whistleblower protection. There are a number of laws related to the protection of witnesses and members of national defence and security departments, as well as laws covering the protection of journalistic sources. Under certain circumstances whistleblowers can fall into these categories. Yet currently, the rights of potential whistleblowers are most likely to be protected (and with greatest effectiveness) by regular law, i.e. the Labour Code and Law on Public Service. However, these laws only provide for regular mechanisms to protect employees and do not take into account the special situation of whistleblowers. Current policies and practices TI Lithuania conducted two surveys on internal and external reporting practices. The majority of public institutions surveyed have some sort of internal reporting and protection mechanisms in place that fall into line with current legislation. However, protection is mainly limited to general guarantees for all employees as laid down by the Labour Code, other relevant laws and the internal rules and regulations of a particular institution. The effectiveness of internal whistleblowing systems is highly questionable. Most respondent institutions noted few cases of employee reporting. TI Lithuania also identified and surveyed more than 50 public institutions that operate external public hotlines and helplines. Organisations operating such external lines, and society in general, do not make distinctions between different types and purposes of such lines. Likewise no distinction is made as to who can submit reports, which means complainants Transparency International