552 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "The legal framework may provide for electoral campaign financing on the basis of the following internationally-recognized standards: That there should be a transparent system of disclosure of the funding received by any party or candidate."
- "Campaign financing should be transparent, and there should be clear legislation or rules governing campaign financing."
- "Where applicable, funding of political parties must be transparent and based on agreed threshold in accordance with the laws of the land."
- "The financing of political parties through public funds should be on condition that the accounts of political parties shall be subject to control by specific public organs (for example by a Court of Audit). States shall promote a policy of financial transparency of political parties that benefit from public financing."
- "States should require particular records to be kept of all expenditure, direct and indirect, on electoral campaigns in respect of each political party, each list of candidates and each candidate."
- "It is common practice for candidates and political parties to be obliged to disclose funding sources and provide reports and accounts of their campaign expenditure."
- "Financing of political parties must be fully transparent, which requires political parties, in particular: ii. to declare the identity of donors who give financial support exceeding a certain limit."
- "Companion legislation that would further promote the right of access to information and provide a supportive legislative framework should be enacted, including: laws compelling disclosure of political party and campaign financing."
- "Political parties, candidates and politicians should disclose assets, income and expenditure to an independent agency."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Party reports should be disclosed to an official auditing body and to members of the public."
- "To this effect, party financing legislation should include stipulations regulating at least four distinct aspects relating to the transparency of political finance: Disclosure: rules which oblige political parties to open up their financial accounts and reveal information on their levels of income, including the identity of donors, and expenditure."
- "Rules which require a party to maintain and make available for public scrutiny records identifying donations exceeding a certain value and their donors, may be said to embody the principle of transparency."
- "There must be accountability in the use of public funds."
- "States should require political parties to present the accounts referred to in Article 11 [consolidated accounts that include those of directly or indirectly related entities] regularly, and at least annually, to the independent authority referred to in Article 14 [independent monitoring which includes supervision over the accounts of political parties and campaign expenses]."
- "States should require political parties regularly, and at least annually, to make public the accounts referred to in Article 11 [consolidated accounts that include those of directly or indirectly related entities] or as a minimum a summary of those accounts, including the information required in Article 10 [records of all direct and indirect expenditures for every candidate, list of candidates and party], as appropriate, and in Article 12 [information regarding all donations received by the party, including the nature and value, with donors of donations over a certain value identified]."
- "States should require political parties and candidates to make their full accounts publicly available at regular intervals. At the very least, parties and candidates should present a summary of their accounts, including records of donations and expenditure."
- "Voters should therefore be entitled to know who the financial supporters are of the different political parties and candidates they vote for."
- "The transparency of electoral expenses should be achieved through the publication of campaign accounts."
- "Reporting on election activities should more or less follow the electoral cycle. Ideally, reports should be available in time to allow a candidate’s opponent, the authorities or the public to investigate and publicise any questionable transactions before the elections."
- "In reporting and disclosure regulations, there is a need to strike a balance between the wish by outsiders to know (transparency) and the wish by donors and recipients to maintain their private sphere (privacy)."
- "Items identified by reporting rules should strike an adequate balance between the party's right to privacy as a voluntary association and the public's right to know the important financial details of the struggle for power. The disclosure provisions' details on the sources and amounts of large donations must take into account the potential to identify interested money and the desirability of confidentiality in grass-roots support to parties and candidates."
- "Carried to an extreme, the voting public's right to know who supports candidates and parties would mean that even the smallest amount would have to be disclosed, giving the name, address and occupation of the donor. There are, however, expenses involved in providing transparency: first, administrative expenses, connected with professional bookkeeping at all levels of political activity; and second, the expenses of political actors and public agencies in preparing and processing unnecessarily detailed information. Thus a realistic concept of transparency has to be a search for the optimum balance."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Disclosure provisions should distinguish between income and expenditure."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Donations exceeding a certain minimum threshold should be disclosed."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Donations should be itemized into standardized categories."
- "Legislation should be adopted which itemizes private donations."
- "The sources of income and the categories of expenditure should be standardised and specified by the law."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Disclosure provisions should distinguish between the financing of political parties and the financing of candidates."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Disclosure provisions should distinguish between routine party finances and electoral finances."
- "Public legislation on disclosure should adopt the following guidelines: Disclosure rules should include both national and local party finances."
- "There are four primary principles underpinning successful regulation on public disclosure. The information provided to the public needs to be: Timely, in the sense that information on election expenditure published long after the elections can neither affect the voters’ choice on election day, nor serve as a good basis for reasonable sanctions."
- "There are four primary principles underpinning successful regulation on public disclosure. The information provided to the public needs to: ...Include the right amount of detail, and not overburden the reader with a level of detail that is not useful. If the reports are to be read by an informed public, they need to be presented in a way and with a level of detail to make them understandable to a non-professional."
- "There are four primary principles underpinning successful regulation on public disclosure. The information provided to the public needs to be: ...Publicly available, not only on public display in a government office in the capital during office hours, but rather published in a way that gives the maximum number of citizens the chance to read the reports. Depending on the country, this may mean publication in main newspapers or on the website of the enforcement agency (EMB or other) or even posting summaries on public notice boards."
- "...[I]n order to be effective disclosed information should be accurate, publicly available and comprehensible to potential users. An essential prerequisite is timely information which attracts the attention of the media and public debate, and has a potential impact on voting behaviour."
- "Disclosure requirements, which in order to be effective must require timely and public disclosure, must have equal application. Enforcement mechanisms should be included that also provide due process protections and safeguards to ensure nondiscriminatory application."
- "Information provided to party members, state agencies and the public must...clearly identify all individual contributions made by donors and parties, including the names of contributors. Information provided to party members, state agencies and the public must be: ...Reliable: State as well as social control heavily relies on having parties and other relevant actors provide the correct information. Given its importance, submitting false data is considered a crime in a number of countries. Timely: Reporting should be done as close to when the transaction was completed as possible since time allows for manipulation. Any information provided in the run-up to elections must be made available immediately to citizens. Intelligible: Information has to be presented in a user-friendly way. Background on different sources as well as searchable databases is necessary to empower individual citizens and the media to understand, interpret and use political finance data. Accessible: Data should not only be available upon request, but disclosed actively through a variety of channels. Modern information technologies allow state agencies to implement automated reporting and online monitoring via searchable datasets."
- "Such information should be presented in a timely fashion, on an annual basis, but particularly before and after elections. It should list donors and the amount of their donations, including in kind contributions and loans, and should also list destinations of expenditure. The information should be made publicly available in a timely manner so that the public can take account of it prior to elections."
- "Reports should be timely. Reports should be public. Reports should be detailed and comprehensive. Reports should be understandable to the public at large."
- "Effective reports should be detailed and comprehensive. They should include accounts of both donations to and expenditure by the party."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions...1. A legal framework for political finance regulation—contained in the electoral law, the political parties law or a separate political finance law—should include: Realistic requirements for financial reporting of electoral activity, including disclosure of private sources of funding for political activity (also with relatively high thresholds for public reporting)."
- "States should require the accounts of a political party to specify all donations received by the party, including the nature and value of each donation."
- "In case of donations over a certain value, donors should be identified in the records."
- "States should require the accounts of political parties and of candidates to specify all donations received by the party, including the nature and value of each donation."
- "States should require political parties and the entities connected with political parties mentioned in Article 6 [entities that are directly or indirectly related to the political party or are otherwise under the control of the political party] to keep proper books and accounts. The accounts of political parties should be consolidated to include, as appropriate, the accounts of the entities mentioned in Article 6."
- "Entities connected with political parties should be required to keep proper books and accounts in order to facilitate public monitoring of the lawfulness of their financial activities."
- "Moreover, for the purpose of openness and transparency, the accounts of political parties should be consolidated to include the accounts of the entities connected with the party."
- "Special records of all direct and indirect expenditure should also be required on electoral campaigns for each political party and each candidate. Reporting on election activities should more or less follow the electoral cycle."
- "The parties should offer access to their programmatic and ideological documents and discussions, to decision-making procedures and to party accounts in order to enhance transparency and to be consistent with sound principles of good governance."
- "Separate reporting requirements should be adopted for operational activities and electoral activities."
- "If public funds are allocated with general regard to an electoral campaign it should be clarified that the funds can be used by the political party for any legitimate party purpose; specific conditions for the use of appropriations should be expressly indicated. If funds are appropriated strictly for campaign purposes and for such purposes only, guidance should be provided how to handle expenditure which cannot be classified as exclusively campaign related – as for example expenditure for (rent of) party premises, which are used both for current party business and for campaign activities, or for party employees who are employed by the party for both current and campaign activities. If applicable, guidance should also be provided as to both the span of time before and after an election during which the use of appropriations is legally acceptable and the time at which expenditure is considered to have occurred."