Draft bill 341.

Summary.

The draft bill amends the Criminal Code to impose seven to ten years’ imprisonment on a public official who solicits, accepts, or receives benefits either to breach official duties or to perform official acts without breaching those duties. It imposes the same penalty on anyone who offers, promises, or gives benefits to a public official to induce the official to perform, delay, or omit an official act or breach official duties.

It proposes five to eight years’ imprisonment for a public official who uses restricted or confidential information obtained through the office for personal benefit or for a third party. If the official discloses, sells, or reveals to an unauthorized person the identity of an anonymous informant or a protected witness recognized by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Público), the penalty would be six to nine years.

The amendment to Article 351 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Panama penalizes an unjustified increase in a public official’s assets while in office and for up to five years after leaving office. The proposed penalty is seven to ten years, or ten to fifteen years if the amount obtained exceeds 100,000 balboas (B/. 100,000.00); it also applies to an intermediary. The provision covers increases in assets and repayment of debts. It provides for a penalty increase of one-third to one-half when nominees, legal entities, or sham transactions are used to conceal assets, or when the unjustified amount is at least one million balboas. It includes circumstances involving the public official’s spouse, cohabiting partner, and relatives, and assigns criminal liability to beneficial owners of legal entities whose income cannot be supported by lawful sources.

By adding Article 28-A to the Criminal Procedure Code, it assigns the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Judicial Branch (Órgano Judicial) a duty to protect State assets. It provides that proceedings concerning offenses against the Public Administration, money laundering arising from those offenses, and other conduct harmful to the State must pursue asset restitution and recovery. When financial harm has been established, assets acquired through the offense would become State property.

The new Article 82-A allows an informant to request that the Public Prosecutor’s Office anonymize the informant’s identity and identifying information in response to the specified risks; that protection could also be offered on the Office’s own initiative. It requires that information to be kept in a safe or similar facility. If the information provided leads to a final conviction or a plea agreement involving a fine or the return of assets, it provides for a 10% reward. The Attorney General (Procurador General de la Nación) would authorize payment without prior review by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República). It requires the authorities involved, including the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas), to maintain confidentiality and exempts the reward from income tax.

Article 220-A, added to the Criminal Procedure Code, would prevent agreements from reducing, waiving, or hindering asset recovery in those cases. The draft bill reiterates the specified amendments and additions and provides that it would take effect upon promulgation in the Official Gazette. Its provisions concern the institutions mentioned and may be relevant to public officials, informants, legal entities, and sectors that contract or interact with the State.