"This year's winners are shedding light on the workings of three desperately corrupt areas."

Peter Eigen, Chairman, Transparency International, September 2002

"Citizens who do not believe in the judicial system do not believe in the state, and that is extremely dangerous because the trust and the confidence of its citizens is the foundation of any democratic state."
Jana Dubovcová, TI Integrity Awards winner 2002

The judicial establishment was rocked when Jana Dubovcová, a 50-year-old District Court Chief Justice, published the results of a survey of corruption in her own court, but nobody was as shocked as the woman who had designed the survey herself. Findings revealed that nearly one-third of people passing through the courts had encountered corruption. According to Dubovcová: "The biggest surprise to me was that people answered 'yes, it is the judges themselves who are personally asking for bribes'. I had not expected the survey to show such a result."

Her colleagues were furious, and the Council of Slovak Judges asked the minister of justice to dismiss her. Fortunately, he refused, and Dubovcová not only kept her job, but also pioneered the introduction of a new judicial management system. This electronic tracking system not only speeds up cases, it also assigns judges to cases by random selection, so that they cannot demand bribes in advance.

"It is a positive signal for Slovakia that we are trying to improve our society," Dubovcová told reporters. For her, the fight against corruption is a duty. "I was only doing what I consider to be necessary in life," she said.

"The pharmaceutical industry is aggressively marketing its products through doctors, whom many companies bribe with gifts and so-called favours in order to exert control over them."
Peter Schönhöfer, TI Integrity Awards winner 2002

Dr Peter Schönhöfer, 67, has been a critic of the corrupt practices of some pharmaceutical companies for more than two decades. Taking on the powerful industry required nerves of steel as well as painstaking research. "Of course it was risky," he recalls. "The companies always sue for so much in damages that losing a single case would have meant instant ruin for me." Schönhöfer would have had to pay the damages out of his own pocket, but in the end he always came out on top in court.

Putting profits above patients has dire effects, the professor warns. "We can observe roughly a 150-fold increase in the costs of chemotherapy in solid cancers over the past 30 years, but no significant gain in average life expectancy of more than a single week," he explains. "It is necessary to uncover these corrupting structures and strategies in order to keep our health care systems functioning."

Schönhöfer is not about to rest on his laurels. He is willing to risk it all again if that is the price for speaking the truth. "There remains much to do," he said on accepting the Integrity Award. His antagonists will have read this as a quiet warning. They have learnt the hard way that this quietly spoken academic carries a big stick.

"Mesquita has taken on the most powerful and corrupt in his city again and again."
Cláudio Weber Abramo, General Secretary of Transpârencia Brasil

"People have no idea how directly proportional the existence of corruption is to the misery of our people."
Luis Roberto Mesquita, Integrity Awards winner 2002

Luis Roberto Mesquita initiated a campaign to clean up politics in Guarulhos, Brazil. He organised public meetings and challenged candidates to commit themselves to corruption-free government if elected.

When he subsequently found out that the new mayor's family had bought city properties at knockdown prices, the problems began.
"They tried to blackmail me, they even offered me various positions, but I would never accept such offers. Then there were personal threats, death threats, bomb threats, so both my movement and myself personally were put under a great deal of pressure," recalls the 43-year-old businessman. Undaunted, Mesquita led a campaign that resulted in the mayor being dismissed from office, impeached, arrested, and finally jailed for 50 days. A second campaign targeted corrupt councillors, some of whom had even demanded bribes to remove their crooked boss from office.

Accepting the award, Mesquita spoke of his belief in the power of the people. "The average citizen can do a lot to help in the struggle against corruption," he said. "The results cannot always be chosen by us," he cautioned, "but we have to fight for a better, fairer and more just world for our children and grandchildren. Fortunately, hope never dies."