July 1, 2011 will mark the one-year anniversary of the passing of the Federal Law “On provision of access to information about activities of courts in the Russian Federation.” The most important provision of this Law is the requirement that court rulings be placed online. The Institute for the Rule of Law has monitored implementation of this legal norm.
The level of activity of law enforcement authorities in terms of the detection of economic crime has changed several times during the last 12 years. The phase of sharp activity decline lasted from 2000 to 2003, that of stable growth from 2004 to 2008, and again decline in 2009-2011.
In the 2000s, especially beginning with 2002, we witnessed a fast growth of activity of law enforcement agencies in registering crimes (and initiating criminal cases) according to articles connected with economic activities. This growth also brought about an increase in the workload for the investigative authorities and courts in relation to the above-mentioned offences. The increase in the number of initiated criminal cases caused an increase in the number of solved cases admitted by the investigation, their transfer to the courts and delivery of verdicts.
The year 2009 opened with a discussion on the possible reform of law enforcement agencies in Russia. A standard recipe of such a reform, usually recommended by international organizations, is a sharp decrease in the numbers of law enforcement personnel coupled with pay rises, increases of expenditures on equipment and on strengthening of control over security offices (which also entails expenses). Statistical data indicates that, globally, these measures indeed lead to success most of the time. Is it, however, suitable for Russia? In this piece we analyze in what ways the scale of funding as well as the number of personnel influence the productivity of police forces in the post-socialist countries: the republics of the former USSR and Eastern European countries.
According to the plan, several amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation will be considered during the autumn 2012 session of State Duma. These amendments, along with several provisions of the “Olympic” law, in force on the territory of Krasnodarski krai, presuppose simplification of the procedure of property confiscation, but on the whole territory of Russia. Simplification of the procedure may bear particularly painful consequences for informal owners. Informal owners are those whose property rights are acknowledged in practice but are not secured legally. According to various estimates, 25 to 50 million citizens who own immovable property, face such a situation.
It is estimated that cases filed upon applications of the Pension Fund involving sums of less than 1000 roubles take up around 8 percent of the whole budget of the system of arbitration, which amounts to over 1 billion 400 million roubles (these numbers are unclear, maybe 1.4 billion rubles is better) per year. At the same time, the cumulative income of the state earned from settling these cases is slightly over 130 million roubles per year. The net loss, therefore, exceed 1,27 billion roubles per year, i.e. 9 roubles per each citizen of Russia yearly.
The evaluation system of the activities of departments and certain employees of the militia (now – police) on the basis of statistical indicators that reflect the amount of completed work of a certain kind (the “quota system”) is one of the most challenging problems for the reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The tendency of employees at all levels to adjust their activities to the “good” indicators results in several negative consequences: upward distortions in reports, the striving for “good” indicators to the prejudice of the purpose of work, evasion of registration of certain offences and fabrication of evidence in case of others, formal approach to certain responsibilities, and neglect of those that do not influence the accountability reports.
Independence of the judicial system is one of the key provisions necessary for the effectiveness of the national law enforcement environment, its competitiveness compared to jurisdiction of other states, and stimulation of economic growth. Only a truly independent court (independent not only from the litigants but also from other branches of government) may help in overcoming legal nihilism. It will also make it possible to transfer a large portion of human interaction into the legal framework and avoid aggravation of conflicts in Russia.
The low quality of the institutional environment in Russia negatively affects the speed of economic growth, decreases the well-being of the citizens and prevents technological development. Currently, as our study shows, the institutional environment is not as bad as it is generally believed to be – at least in regards to certain aspects. On the contrary, the bad institutions that stall economic activity are localized in specific clusters of the institutional environment. We may call them inhibition-points that have appeared within the Russian economy (as a counterpart of growing-points). The inhibition-points stall certain types of economic activity, and, although indirectly, negatively affect the economic situation in general, especially concerning the growth perspectives.
In this study we compare legislative activity in Russia with countries of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. We also evaluate stability of the legislation and the influence it exerts on the quality of the legal sphere in these countries. The comparison shows that low legislative activity and maintenance of communist-era legal codes does not in itself indicate weakness of the legal system. For instance, in several countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, legislative stability is conducive to legal certainty, greater independence of courts, and maturity of the civil society. In Russia and Ukraine increase in the number of laws does not bring about resolution of problems or improvement of the legal field, but rather causes instability of the civil turnover, stalls economic development, and weakens the civil society. In those countries where legislation is stable, there forms a legal environment that is conducive to economic growth.
