The deputies questioned the confiscation

State Duma deputies spoke out in defense of bona fide purchasers of the property of corrupt officials. Representatives of several factions at once submitted to the State Duma a bill providing for the seizure of property acquired in a dubious way only on the basis of a court verdict on a corruption crime. Now almost any entrepreneur who has acquired property belonging to the state can fall under confiscation, the authors of the bill warn.

A group of deputies led by the vice-speaker from the New People faction Vladislav Davankov submitted to the State Duma bill, which provides for a ban on the confiscation of property acquired with unconfirmed income, unless the illegality of their receipt is established by a final conviction in a criminal case of corruption. Such an initiative, the authors of the bill explain in an explanatory note, is aimed at improving the mechanism for protecting the rights of owners from illegal seizure of property. Among the authors of the initiative are also deputies from United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party.

In fact, we are talking about the abolition of the norm, which allows the prosecutor’s office to sue for the seizure of the property of former and current officials to the state revenue – it was under this scheme that the assets of the ex-minister of the Open Government Mikhail Abyzov, ex-senator from Karachay-Cherkessia Rauf Arashukov and his family, former State Duma deputies Sergei Sopchuk and Sergei Petrov, former FSB lieutenant colonel Kirill Cherkalin and former Interior Ministry colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, as well as many others.

In total, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov reported this spring, the Prosecutor General’s Office only in 2021 filed lawsuits for the seizure of illegally acquired property of civil servants with a total value of 74 billion rubles.

The so-called presumption of illegality of income applies to officials – the provisions of Art. 235 of the Civil Code allow, in particular, to alienate in favor of the state property acquired with funds, the legal origin of which the owner cannot prove. However, the authors of the draft law note that this conflicts with the presumption of innocence established by criminal and administrative legislation, since it allows the state to turn the property of persons whose guilt in committing an offense has not been established and not proven in court into state revenue. There are cases when conscientious purchasers fall under confiscation, that is, people for whom anti-corruption restrictions do not apply at all.

As one of the authors of the bill, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Small and Medium Business Alexander Demin, said, New People took up this problem after numerous complaints from the owners of sanatoriums and farms from the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories, where entrepreneurs were required to return land and real estate to the state – on that on the grounds that they were transferred to businesses with corruption violations.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office demanded, and the court granted the seizure of 1,750 properties, some of which belonged to conscientious entrepreneurs,” the deputy explained to Kommersant. “They bought the property honestly and have nothing to do with officials. The court expressed claims against the officials of the FNPR, FPSK and LLC “Kurortnoe upravlenie (holding) of Kislovodsk”. At the same time, they are not defendants in the case, and the connection of entrepreneurs with any of the officials has not been proven in principle.”

If the legislation is not amended, then after this case, all entrepreneurs who bought objects that ever belonged to the state will be under direct threat, Mr. Demin believes. He emphasizes that the bill is aimed solely at protecting businesses.

“He has nothing to do with officials and in no way allows him to avoid responsibility for corruption violations,” the deputy emphasizes.

Anatoly Vyborny, deputy head of the Duma anti-corruption committee (United Russia), confirmed the relevance of the initiative: disputes on this issue do not subside, the deputy admits. However, according to him, it is necessary to “carefully look at how it complies with current anti-corruption standards. In addition, he adds, one must take into account: it is not always possible to prove the existence of a crime, then the dispute is resolved within the framework of the Civil Code.

In fact, we have to face the fact that the practice of applying the law on control over the expenses of officials is in conflict with other elements of the legal system – in particular, guarantees of property rights, confirms the director of Transparency International – R, Ilya Shumanov (both the organization and Mr. included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents). Especially if you remember that the statute of limitations for such cases is counted from the moment the violation is detected, that is, in fact, it is “rubber”.

There are cases when assets, under the pretext of their corrupt origin, were confiscated from bona fide purchasers, who were the third or fourth buyers.

According to the expert, such confusion is a consequence of the refusal of the Russian authorities to criminalize “illicit enrichment”, as provided for by the UN Convention against Corruption. It is to this scheme that the authors of the amendments are now proposing to return. It would be easier and clearer to act through the criminal law system, when there is a clear corpus delicti and clear sanctions. This is exactly what Russia has been diligently avoiding all the time and what we eventually come to, states Mr. Shumanov.

Anastasia Kornya, Maria Makutina