Consideration of the bill on confiscation for crimes against state security has reached the home stretch

The State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation on Monday recommended adopting in the second and third readings a bill providing for confiscation of property for a number of security crimes, including the dissemination of fakes about the armed forces. Amendments specifying the use of confiscation were also approved. Especially for those who were very excited about this project, committee chairman Pavel Krasheninnikov explained the difference between the introduced measure and the “Stalinist” confiscation, and also assured his colleagues that the authors of the initiative “have no desire to return to Soviet times.”

Let us remind you that the bill was submitted to the State Duma on January 22 by 395 deputies led by the Speaker of the House Vyacheslav Volodin, and already on January 24 the document passed first reading. Amendments to two articles of the Criminal Code (CC) – Art. 207.3 (dissemination of knowingly false information about the armed forces of the Russian Federation) and Art. 280.4 (public calls for activities directed against the security of the state) – introduces an additional qualifying feature: committing a crime for hire or for mercenary reasons.

• If this criterion is present, the authors proposed to provide for the possibility of confiscation of property used in the commission of crimes.
• They also want to extend confiscation to money, valuables and other property intended to finance activities directed against the security of the state.

More than 30 articles of the Criminal Code can be classified as such activities.

• For calls to it, committed for mercenary purposes or motivated by political, national or religious hatred, the punishment is toughened: such crimes move from the category of moderate to serious, and the maximum term of imprisonment increases from four to six years.
• For these and other acts (on nine more charges, including discrediting the army, calls for extremism and the introduction of sanctions), it is also proposed to deprive of honorary titles and state awards.

Head of the State Construction Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov (“United Russia”), before considering the amendments, said that the bill had caused a heated debate, inspired, in his opinion, by memories of Soviet confiscation, which was used as a form of punishment in addition to imprisonment. “Confiscation punished not only the person who committed this or that act, but also his family members. And it was irreversible. It had its justification, because we had a fairly creative person – Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who, in order not to suffer, declared all property to be socialist. And, of course, we just remember that confiscation,” Mr. Krasheninnikov admitted.

In the project we are currently considering, confiscation is not intended as a punitive measure. We have no desire to return to Soviet times.”

He also expressed hope that the targeted amendments made by committee members for the second reading would help clarify the situation.

The first deputy chairman of the committee spoke about these amendments Irina Pankina (ER). She especially noted that not any money and property will be subject to confiscation, but “only what is acquired by criminal means, is used as a weapon of crime, and is used to finance criminal activities.” “It would seem a small, but fundamentally significant nuance,” the deputy emphasized. The Committee proposed adding to the Criminal Code a note clarifying what is meant by activities against state security: this is the commission of crimes under a number of articles of the Criminal Code, including banditry, organizing a criminal community, theft of ammunition, drug smuggling, treason, espionage, sabotage, etc.

The committee also recommended that the amendment to the New People faction be rejected (its leader Alexei Nechaev, the only faction leader, did not sign the bill as a co-author). Party members proposed to adjust the already existing article of the Criminal Code on confiscation of property, excluding from it the securities and property rights of the founders of a limited liability company. “The article has been in effect since 2006, a certain judicial practice has already been formed, and, as it seems to us, it is wrong to change the general structure now,” explained Irina Pankina.

The Duma is expected to consider the amendments in the second reading on January 31, and in the third on February 1.

Ksenia Veretennikova