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ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY. THE ANTI-CORRUPTION LEGAL EDUCATION
Key focus areas of the national anti-corruption policy of the Russian Federation
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2015.2J
Natalia Mamitova, Doctor in Law, Professor, Professor at the political science chair of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, e-mail: nvmamitova@mail.ru
Abstract: The article is addressing the review of the key focus areas of the
national anti-corruption policy of the Russian Federation. The author has introduced a detailed evaluation of the nature of corruption offences in the modern Russian society, emphasizing their social danger and comprehensive mode. The author determines the gaps in the anti-corruption laws, focusing on the anti-corruption expertise of the current Russian laws and promoting the further improvement of anti-corruption legal policy. The bullet points are for the author's original suggestions related to introducing the corruption evaluation system in the Russian Federation. Keywords: government, law, corruption, anti-corruption policy, law, legislation,
expertise, public authority, civil society, state authority.
The problem of fighting corruption in Russia has become at this stage global and endemic. Any forms of organized corruption make it possible to address this issue as institutional, rather than personal. Its high social danger demonstrates global and multinational nature of this phenomenon. One of the key attributes of corruption is its endemic or consistent nature. This feature is also appropriate for corrupt practices, as the process that becomes more involved and replicates itself in the social environment.
The corruption issue is one of the most burning ones for the modern Russia, as it impedes solution of the urgent economic and political problems, compromising the government's public image, interfering in the effective development of international trade, commercial and other relations, as well as the sustainable law-making development.
Social nature of corruption lies in the devolving office of the public authority. The President of the Russian Federation has initiated the development of the draft of the code of official conduct for the public sector workers contemplating the standards of official ethics, while anti-corruption statutes are enacted at the various levels, both of municipalities and the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
In this context, the proven instruments of deferring and controlling the corrupt practices are now emerging in the Russia's legal framework, both in the public administration system and in the sphere of the civil society development.
Anti-corruption policy constitutes scientifically based, sustainable and systemic activities effected by the institutions of the state and civil society, aimed at preventing corruption and reducing its adverse effect, as well as eliminating the reasons and factors that give rise to it.
It is important to highlight the following levels of the anti-corruption policy with due regard to structured organization of the society as the system of institutions. In the government sector, including the government administration office, it comprises anti-corruption policy in the public authorities and other governmental organizations functioning in the branches and areas of state administration. In the sphere of local self-government, anti-corruption policy shall be extended to the officials and agencies of the local self-government system. Therefore, anticorruption policy in the public sphere has four types; while in the view of the status of the persons holding state and municipal political positions, including elective ones, it is split into six levels, as similar to the modern structure of public administration. It is reasonable to raise an issue of developing the anti-corruption policy with differentiation of corruption areas, which should be taken into account as the prerequisite for its future efficiency1.
Anti-corruption policy is comprised by the balanced activities pursued by the governmental authorities and civil society institutions and aimed at eliminating corruption in the society, building anti-corruption awareness, strengthening legality, performing anti-corruption expertise of statutory acts and the drafts thereof.
I would like to dwell in more details upon the issues of anti-corruption expertise of the Russian laws calling for attention and solution by the government. Firstly, the review of the federal laws and regulations allows concluding that the major burden on effecting the anti-corruption expertise as the tool of the anticorruption legal policy falls on the federal and regional executive authorities along with the Public Prosecution Service of the Russian Federation2. However, it is stated in the laws of the Russian Federation that independent experts can also be engaged in performing the anti-corruption expertise, while such experts can be referred to as the parties to the public unofficial expertise.
Unofficial expertise is performed by non-governmental agencies and organizations, various scientific and educational institutions, groups of legal professionals and individuals. Their findings have no legal effect, while their conclusions as to the issue concerned are advisory, rather than binding. In our opinion, the term of "unofficial expertise" can be identified with the definition "social". By the moment, legal regulation of the procedure for performing the anti-corruption of the laws and regulations and drafts thereof is still insufficient, especially in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
The matters of the legal status of independent experts authorized to perform the anti-corruption expertise, imperfect methods of the anti-corruption expertise, lack of professionalism of the experts call for the well-reasoned and careful
1 See: Malko A.V. The draft concept of anti-corruption policy in the Russian Federation. - Saratov, 2010. - P. 6.
2 See: Mamitova N.V. The issues of anti-corruption expertise performed by the agencies of the Public Prosecution Service of the Russian Federation. // Legal Studies Issues. - 2013. - № 1. - PP. 288-295.
LAW AND MODERN STATES
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approach in this context on the part of the state anti-corruption policy1.
So far, one can point out a range of gaps in the anti-corruption laws of the Russian Federation that are related to performance of the anti-corruption expertise and should be eliminated in the pursuance of an efficient anti-corruption legal policy:
1. It is not mandatory to eliminate the corruption factors revealed due to the anti-corruption expertise.
2. The statement on completion of the anti-corruption expertise is mandatory for consideration, but not for implementation. It is advisory, rather than binding.
3. No responsibility is established for the agencies enacting laws, regulations and bills for non-eliminating the corruption factors revealed further to the anti-corruption expertise and enacting laws and regulations that contain corruption factors revealed.
4. There is neither an obligation statutory prescribed to perform the anticorruption expertise of the prior laws and regulations in effect, nor the mechanisms ensuring the binding requirement for the anti-corruption expertise of the draft laws and regulations.
5. The legal status of the experts is not enacted, namely the set of rights, duties, obligations and responsibilities.
The above ideas form the backbone of the author's suggestions related to further improvement of the anti-corruption legal policy of the Russian state:
- to establish and enact performing of a scientifically based legal expertise as a comprehensive stage of a law-making procedure;
- to develop and enact the key requirements to the laws and regulations with the view to the legal drafting;
- to develop the uniform methods of performing legal expertise of the bills, including anti-corruption expertise, based on the scientific methodology;
- to ensure development of a scientifically based concept of the anticorruption legal policy for modern Russian state to rely upon the burning and socially relevant ideas.
The suggestions related to introducing the corruption evaluation system in the Russian Federation can be distinguished as a specific package:
1. With due regard to the fact that corruption is a complicated social phenomenon, it is reasonable to perform monitoring and system-oriented assessment of the corruption being perceived and understood by various social groups of people. To this end, it is necessary to define the monitoring tasks and targets and ascertain the accordance between the monitoring tasks and tools.
2. It is necessary to take measures to improve the methods of evaluation the regulatory impact and anti-corruption expertise of the Russian laws and to establish the subsequent corruption indexes in the Russian Federation.
3. It is required to study the international scientific experience and foreign practices of corruption monitoring as the key factor of corruption indicators and to derive the single formula for calculating the corruption effects.
It is obviously that the key focus area of the national anti-corruption policy
1 See: Mamitova N.V. Legal expertise of the Russian laws: educational and practical guide. -2013.
Moscow,
go beyond the above-mentioned problems. The Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 226 dated 11 April 2014 "Concerning the national plan of fighting corruption for the period of 2014-2015" set the tasks and defined the key priorities and focus areas for the anti-corruption policy, forming the backbone of multiple measures aimed at reaching the above targets and solving the essential problems that have already reached the nationwide scale.
References:
1. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 226 dated 11 April 2014 "Concerning the national plan of fighting corruption for the period of 2014-2015".
2. A. V. Malko. The draft concept of anti-corruption policy in the Russian Federation. - Saratov, 2010.
3. N. V. Mamitova. The issues of anti-corruption expertise performed by the agencies of the Public Prosecution Service of the Russian Federation. // Legal Studies Issues. - 2013. - # 1.
4. N. V. Mamitova. Legal expertise of the Russian laws: educational and practical guide. - Moscow: Norma: INFRA-M, 2013.
