The Ministry of Economy is linking the issuance of permits with the mechanism of mandatory consideration of disputes before trial

The Ministry of Economy has submitted to the government a draft resolution on the creation of a unified system for reviewing complaints in the field of licensing activities in a pre-trial manner. Such a service has already been operating on the State Services portal since August 2023, but as an experiment and on the principles of voluntariness in filing complaints. With the adoption of the resolution, the pre-trial procedure will become mandatory and regulated. Business associations positively assess the new opportunities, but point to the increasing risk of receiving formal responses from officials to complaints from entrepreneurs.

As Kommersant learned, the Ministry of Economy on Monday presented to the White House a draft government resolution on the formation of a pre-trial appeal subsystem in the field of licensing activities based on the GIS “Standard cloud solution for automating control (supervisory) activities” (TOR KND). Previously, the use of such a pre-trial appeal mechanism was not systematized and was not mandatory. If an entrepreneur disagrees with the decision of the licensing authority, he could immediately go to court, or he could appeal it pre-trial, but through a general appeal system for all government services. “With the adoption of the resolution, the pre-trial appeal system, firstly, becomes mandatory, and secondly, the terms for consideration of complaints, their content and other points are clearly stated,” the Ministry of Economy explained to Kommersant.

In general, in the area of ​​control, the pre-trial appeal mechanism has been used since July 1, 2021. In August 2023, it was extended to the licensing area – a corresponding service was launched on the State Services portal (see Kommersant of July 31, 2023). This happened as part of an experiment to optimize and automate licensing processes. In December 2023, a law on pre-trial appeal of decisions and actions of licensing authorities was signed.

“Currently the service covers 365 types of licenses and permits. It is planned that the pre-trial appeal mechanism will be introduced into the procedure for obtaining at least 60 more permits,” Dmitry Grigorenko’s government staff told Kommersant. In total, since the launch of the service, entrepreneurs have filed about 600 complaints about licensing activities, with 43% of the total number of complaints filed in 2024, which indicates an increase in the demand for the service, they added.

Feedback from businesses through the “pre-trial” channel is intended to speed up the process of setting up permitting activities. However, according to the head of the Expert Center for Criminal Legal Policy and the Execution of Judicial Acts of Business Russia, Ekaterina Avdeeva, “one cannot help but note the risk of even greater enthusiasm for civil servants with standard answers without a proper assessment of the essence of the issue for the sake of meeting deadlines and a formal report on the work done ” Response templates are already actively used even without the proposed system, and it is necessary to provide a mechanism for reducing the use of a formal approach with a mandatory assessment of the merits of the complaint, even in the case of some defects in its presentation, the expert says. Support of Russia previously noted that the resource for pre-trial appeals in licensing activities will be in demand no less than in control and supervisory activities.

“Pre-trial appeal is an already proven way to reduce the administrative burden on business and help it resolve issues without unnecessary bureaucracy and time,” Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economy Alexey Khersontsev told Kommersant. Dmitry Grigorenko’s office noted that thanks to the integration of TOP KND with the State Services portal, the process of challenging decisions of licensing authorities is simplified and accelerated. The period for consideration of complaints when issuing licenses and permits was reduced from nine days in 2023 to eight in 2024, with a standard of up to 15 working days, depending on the reason for the appeal.

Venera Petrova