Our response to GRECO – Newspaper Kommersant No. 4 (7449) dated 01/12/2023

The New People submitted a bill to the State Duma providing for the creation of a new anti-corruption body – a commission that should monitor anti-corruption measures. Until now, it was carried out within the framework of the evaluation mechanisms of the bodies of the Council of Europe, but we have withdrawn from it, remind the authors of the bill. Politicians believe that this loss is small and can be compensated by their own efforts. The expert says that Russia has enough funds to fight corruption even without such initiatives, and parliamentarians can, if they wish, engage in anti-corruption monitoring on their own, without creating new structures for this.

The leader of the New People, Aleksey Nechaev, and his colleague in the Duma faction, Sardana Avksentyeva, submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing the creation of a special anti-corruption body – the Russian Commission for Monitoring and Regulating Anti-Corruption Legislation. It is expected that it will monitor anti-corruption measures, and it will include representatives of the president, government, parliamentary factions and higher courts, as well as the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigative Committee, the Accounts Chamber, the Central Bank, commissioners for human rights and for the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs. Based on the results of its work, the commission will prepare an annual report to the president (and publish it on the government website), as well as propose measures to improve legal regulation in the field of combating corruption. The commission should be headed by a coordinator who is appointed by the president for a period of two years (but not more than two consecutive terms), who has fairly broad powers: he will organize the work of the new structure, approve its regulations and report to the president on the results of the work.

The authors of the bill explain the need for the emergence of a new body by the upcoming denunciation of the Convention on Criminal Liability for Corruption (the president submitted the corresponding bill to the State Duma this week) and the termination of the membership of the Russian Federation in the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO). The latter monitored how countries met their anti-corruption commitments and made recommendations on outstanding issues. Taking them into account, the profile division of the Prosecutor General’s Office prepared proposals for improving the legal regulation in the field of combating corruption. Now, an alternative national mechanism for monitoring and preparing recommendations is needed, and representatives of relevant public authorities with the support of parliamentary parties can do this, the deputies believe.

Anatoly Vyborny, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption (United Russia), told Kommersant that he does not yet see the need to adopt such a law, since there are enough tools in place to fight corruption. “We have a presidential anti-corruption council, we have a national anti-corruption plan, a national strategy, and, finally, the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, through which legislative initiatives in this area pass,” Mr. Vyborny listed. In his opinion, there are also enough feedback institutions in the field of law enforcement to make decisions on the further development of anti-corruption legislation.

Indeed, the body proposed to be created is not much different from the already existing Anti-Corruption Council under the President, which has been operating since 2008 and whose task is also to prepare proposals regarding the development and implementation of state policy in the field of combating corruption. True, this body does not include representatives of political parties, and the results of the work are not public – over the past few years, only short messages about meetings of the council’s presidium have appeared on the Kremlin’s website, their agenda has not been made public.

In a conversation with Kommersant, Ms. Avksentieva agreed that there are already structures in Russia that have similar functionality. “However, in our opinion, there are two simple and positive points here. The first is that any additional pike in the lake does not allow crucians to doze off once again. And hence the second positive moment: when there are few resources, it is necessary to find and literally scratch out funds that are spent incorrectly,” the deputy explained. land” – our party is traditionally very good at this.

Viktor Kostromin, chairman of the interregional public organization Center for Combating Corruption in Government Bodies, sees no point in creating another anti-corruption body. According to him, some simply misinterpreted Russia’s withdrawal from the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption and for some reason decided that this would lead to changes in legislation. Now they sometimes try to speculate on this topic, Mr. Kostromin believes. In fact, the exit from GRECO was a forced step that would not entail changes in the national anti-corruption policy, the expert is convinced. At the same time, he assesses the idea of ​​law enforcement monitoring as sound, but he believes that deputies are quite capable of implementing it with the help of existing tools. It is hardly necessary to establish another commission for this, Viktor Kostromin concludes.

Anastasia Kornya, Ksenia Veretennikova