Beneficial Ownership Transparency: A Guide for Parliaments
The Role of Parliament
Parliaments play a crucial role in ensuring BOT by enacting and enforcing laws, overseeing government actions, holding relevant authorities accountable, promoting public awareness and engagement, and fostering good governance and international cooperation.
Passing legislation: Parliaments must pass laws that mandate the disclosure of beneficial ownership information and establish mechanisms for verifying and storing this data. These laws should be comprehensive, clear and enforceable, covering all relevant legal entities and requiring accurate and up-to-date information. Good Legislation also helps to ensure the sustainability of the reforms by making them able to withstand potential legal challenges. Legislating for reforms as to how governments collect and process beneficial ownership data is one of the key requirements placed on parliaments to ensure the effective implementation of BOT. Specifically, parliaments need to keep on top of the latest developments regarding which individuals and corporate vehicles need to be subject to reporting requirements for BOT to be rolled out effectively. This may require taking an iterative approach to legal reforms, periodically updating the laws to ensure they produce the desired policy goals.
"Parliaments can ensure that BOT laws are comprehensive, clear and enforceable, covering all relevant legal entities and requiring accurate and up-to-date information."
Overseeing government action: Parliaments can exercise oversight to ensure that the government is effectively implementing BOT laws and regulations. This includes scrutinizing government policies, reviewing funding allocations for relevant agencies in support of BOT, and investigating potential departure from the intended goals or implementation of the reforms. Parliaments can also hold relevant authorities accountable for ensuring BOT implementation. This includes summoning officials for questioning, conducting public hearings and reporting on findings and recommendations.
"Parliaments can exercise oversight to ensure that the government is effectively implementing BOT laws and regulations."
Enhancing public engagement: Parliaments can raise public awareness about the importance of BOT and ensure there is public engagement in BOT initiatives. This involves organizing public forums, distributing educational materials, promoting awareness in the media and engaging civil society organizations dedicated to BOT issues. In developing legal provisions for BOT, parliaments should ensure that the expert community, civil society and other stakeholders are involved in the design and execution of the reforms to increase the legitimacy of the process and the quality of the legal provisions.
"Parliaments can raise public awareness about the importance of and ensure public engagement in BOT initiatives."
Fostering international good governance: Parliaments can contribute to international efforts to advance BOT globally by engaging with counterparts in other countries and supporting multilateral initiatives to raise standards for effective implementation. This can involve sharing best practices, promoting harmonization of BOT standards and facilitating the exchange of and access to information. Parliaments can also ensure that proposed BOT legislation meets the latest international guidance.
"Parliaments can contribute to international efforts to advance BOT globally"