The ''Haute Autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique'' (HATVP) (lit. High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life) is an independent French administrative authority created by the law on transparency of public affairs on October 11th, 2013. It replaced the ''Commission pour la transparence financière de la vie politique'' (lit. Commission for the financial transparency of politics). The ''HATVP'' is responsible for ascertaining and preventing potential

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

among French

public servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

History

Until 1989, the investigation and application of ethical problems, which included conflicts of interest or chronicles, were included in criminal proceedings, but had no special laws or authority to deal with such affairs until the Luchaire Affair that took place between 1982 and 1986. During the tenure of

Charles Hernu Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

, France supplied shells to Iran. The newspaper ''La Presse de la Manche and'' a report of the ''Contrôle général des armées'' published by

L'Express ''L'Express'' () is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''Réussir''. History ...

in January 1987 revealed that end-user certificates were falsified to show destinations other than Iran, as the country was under an arms embargo at the time. After this scandal, the first "transparency of public life" law was passed; it defined the state funding of political parties and mandated some public servants to publish their financial status. However, this law was very vague and unclear in some aspects. In 1994, a parliamentary working group led by

Philippe Séguin Philippe Séguin (21 April 1943 – 7 January 2010) was a French political figure who was President of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997 and President of the Cour des Comptes of France from 2004 to 2010. He entered the Court of Financi ...

made 18 proposals including the limitation of election expenses, the reformation of the status of political parties, and the extension of the mandatory declaration of status to more categories of public servants. On 14 January 2020, the High Authority received three delegates from the European Commission. On April 10th, 2013, after the Cahuzac affair, the HATVP was created.

Missions

The main missions of the HATVP are: * To prevent conflicts of interest for key public servants * To inspect any significant changes to the net assets of public servants during their service (as an anti-fraud measure) * To inspect faulty or fraudulent declarations of Conflict of Interest or assets of public servants * To oversee "

revolving door A revolving door typically consists of three or four doors that hang on a central shaft and rotate around a vertical axis within a cylindrical enclosure. Revolving doors are energy efficient as they, acting as an airlock, prevent drafts, thus de ...

" behaviors among former and present public servants * To oversee

lobbying In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...

Composition

The HATVP is composed of: * A president * Two members elected by the Conseil d'État * Two members elected by the

Court of Audit A Court of Audit or Court of Accounts is a Supreme audit institution, i.e. a government institution performing financial and/or legal audit (i.e. Statutory audit or External audit) on the executive branch of power. See also *Most of those in ...

* One member nominated by the president of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

* One member nominated by the president of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

References

External links

* {{official, https://www.hatvp.fr/ Government of France