A SURPRISING GOLD STANDARD FOR WHISTLEBLOWERS
Guess who has the strongest, most effective whistleblower law in the world right now?
Did you guess Serbia? Didn’t think so.
The small Balkan nation’s Whistleblowers Protection Act, which came into force in June 2015, is the current gold standard, says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C.
Serbia’s eagerness to win membership in the European Union was the catalyst for the new law, says Devine, who helped develop it. But the determination of the nation’s leaders to reverse decades of repression and abuse helped ensure it provided strong protections.
Serbia spent nearly two years developing its law, using town hall meetings across the country to foster acceptance for whistleblower rights. It trained judges before they could hear a whistleblower case, something no other country has done.
“After a year of the law, the judges knew the rights much better than in the U.S. after 10 years, and far more people had been helped in Serbia than in the U.S. after 10 years,” Devine says.
Serbia’s law applies to companies as well as governments, and covers the full scope of retaliation — anything that could have a chilling effect on whistleblowers.
Crucially, the law provides for interim relief for whistleblowers, allowing them to retain their jobs and incomes while their cases are being heard. “It’s unprecedented, in my experience,” Devine says.
In the law’s first year, 30 people applied for interim relief, and 27 of them had reprisals against them legally frozen, he says. “There’s no other country in the world that comes close to that record.”
Worldwide, whistleblower laws “are popping up right now like dandelions in the springtime,” says Devine. “We’re in the midst of a legal revolution for freedom of speech.”
Three dozen nations have passed whistleblower laws, and 60 others are considering them. “It’s just a phenomenon,” Devine says.
A lot are just window-dressing laws, including Canada’s, which Devine describes as a cardboard shield that provides little real protection. Cardboard shield laws like Canada’s may be “gaudy works of art,” he says, “but if you go into battle with one of those, you’re going to die.”
But others are “metal shield” laws that give whistleblowers a fighting chance to defend themselves, including laws in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Ghana and Korea, Devine says.
Even so, the battle is far from won, he says. “The next challenge is making sure the laws are legitimate, rather than Trojan horses or traps.”
After a year of the law, the judges knew the rights much better than in the U.S. after 10 years, and far more people had been helped in Serbia than in the U.S. after 10 years.