Declarations love silence

The Moscow City Duma Commission on Legislation on Monday recommended that the capital’s parliament support a bill that effectively abolishes the filing of declarations for deputies working on a non-professional basis. In addition, the document, developed to bring city legislation in line with federal legislation, allows the City Duma to publish, instead of information about income, only generalized information about the results of the declaration campaign. Opposition members expressed fear that the wording of the federal and Moscow laws, due to their ambiguous interpretation, could lead to complaints against colleagues who did not file declarations. But the head of the commission, Alexander Semennikov, assured that there should be no problems with this.

On March 1, a federal law came into force that allows regional and municipal deputies working on a voluntary basis not to submit annual income and property declarations. It also allows publishing information about the income and property of parliamentarians in a generalized form – without personal data that allows “identifying the relevant person” or “individualizing the property belonging to the relevant person.”

The Moscow City Duma Commission on Legislation, Regulations, Rules and Procedures at a meeting on March 13 considered correlating amendments to Moscow legislation and recommended them for adoption. The head of the commission, Alexander Semennikov (United Russia), said that the deputies who receive salaries in the Duma will not be affected by the changes. And those who work on a non-professional basis will submit information about income only in two cases: within four months after the election and if during the year the deputy or members of his family made transactions that exceed three years of family income. In other cases, such deputies will annually provide a certificate stating that they have not made such transactions. Also, now only generalized information on declaring income will be posted on the website of the Moscow City Duma, Mr. Semennikov explained: “Did all the deputies fulfill their duties, did they all submit declarations, were there violations when submitting a declaration, incomplete information, inaccurate information.” At the same time, according to him, all verification measures for the income of deputies, provided for by the norms of the law, are preserved.

During the discussion of the bill, the opposition deputies had questions. Elena Shuvalova, expelled from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, asked Alexander Semennikov to explain why federal legislators considered that those deputies who receive income not in the Moscow City Duma should not file declarations. “You might think that they do not use their parliamentary powers in principle and voters do not seem to be interested in how exactly they use their powers: either in the interests of voters, or in the interests of their pockets and corrupt methods,” said Ms. Shuvalova. “Deputies who have a permanent place of work outside the Moscow City Duma also fully comply with the tax legislation of the Russian Federation, and some who hold leadership positions (in other places.— “b”), in the same way they provide property declarations for the main place of work,” Mr. Semennikov explained the logic of his colleagues. In addition, there remains an element of control over parliamentary expenses in the form of declaring major transactions, reminded United Russia. According to him, there is a big discussion about what is more important to control – the deputy’s income or his expenses.

The deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Pavel Tarasov saw the ambiguity in the interpretation of the norms in the federal and Moscow versions of the law regarding the exemption from filing declarations. In his opinion, if the federal law is read literally, then it is still necessary to submit a declaration. He asked for an explanation from the Ministry of Justice or the prosecutor’s office, whether it would turn out that some deputy decides to use such an interpretation of the federal law, submit a declaration and complain about those colleagues who did not submit it. “In this case, we are the arbiters of fate,” Alexander Semennikov reassured the communist. “We pass the law, and it is he who is the alpha and omega.”

Elena Shuvalova, in continuation of the topic, asked Mr. Semennikov how, in technical terms, to be those deputies who “have nothing to hide” and who want to continue submitting declarations. In response, the head of the commission assured her that nothing would change in the process of submitting information about income and property, and the specialized commission would “accept, sew and put under the cloth” such a document.

Recall that out of 45 deputies of the Moscow City Duma, only 15 receive a salary: this is the chairman of the parliament, one of his two deputies and the heads of specialized commissions. The second deputy chairman, journalist Andrei Medvedev, chose to remain an “unprofessional” deputy after his appointment to this position and continued to receive a salary at his main place of work. For this, the capital’s parliament even had to correct its regulations.

In previous years, the highest income in the Moscow City Duma was consistently declared by its speaker Alexei Shaposhnikov (United Russia). True, in 2021 it decreased three times compared to 2020 – from 180.8 million rubles. up to RUB 59.1 million But in 2019, Mr. Shaposhnikov reported receiving almost 2 billion rubles. (According to him, he sold the business he was engaged in before being elected to the Moscow City Duma). Opposition deputies accused the speaker of concealing income in the amount of 870 million rubles at the end of 2018, but a group of representatives of all factions assembled specifically to analyze this situation did not find any false information in the declarations of Alexei Shaposhnikov.

Elena Rozhkova