Д.Медведев.Предпринимательское сообщество.26.02.10

Business Community Members.<br />February 26,

2010<br />Barvikha, Moscow Region<br /><br

Opening Remarks at Meeting with Business Community Members.
February 26, 2010
Barvikha, Moscow Region

Выступление на встрече с представителями предпринимательского сообщества.
26 февраля 2010 года Московская область, Барвиха

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Colleagues,

We are meeting in a somewhat unusual format today. We have here members of the business community on the one hand, and the senior officials of law enforcement agencies and the relevant control directorates of the Presidential Executive Office on the other.

Why have I brought you all together? I did this because I want to discuss with you today the issues of reducing the administrative burden on businesses, streamlining government functions in businesses oversight and supervision, and adjusting the laws and law enforcement practices in prosecution for economic crimes, and I decided it would be best for us to examine these matters together.

These are not new issues but are things we have already been dealing with for a while now. We cannot boast of great success yet, but it must be said that the laws have nonetheless changed in the right direction, though there is still much to be done.

In my Presidential Address [to the Federal Assembly] I spoke of the need for a reasonable criminal law policy. What do I mean by this? I mean a criminal law policy that both punishes and educates. We have already taken some steps in this direction. Last December, for example, we approved laws making it possible to pass sentences other than imprisonment on people convicted of minor offences.

In the case of tax crimes, there has been a six-fold increase in the amount of money that has to have been lost for the offence to qualify as a serious or a major tax crime. This has been done so that what qualifies as tax crimes more adequately reflect the real situation in economic life today. But even when we are dealing with acts that do qualify as tax crimes, under the new rules the suspects or accused in such cases cannot be placed in pre-trial detention. This is possible only in specific circumstances.

Such circumstances could arise, for example, in cases where suspects do not live in Russia, if their identity has not been established, or if they have violated restraints imposed earlier. But in the absence of justified grounds, under the new rules suspects are to be released on bail or after signing a pledge not to leave the country. This is already written in the law and it now has to become a part of judicial practice. I want to discuss this matter too.

Why did I decide to hold this meeting today? I think that we need to apply these new rules not only to the tax crimes I just mentioned, but also to other kinds of economic crimes. I am talking about crimes not involving violence of course, not crimes such as robbery and holdups these are different cases. I am referring to offences connected to business activity, in particular, crimes that fall under the provisions of Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code and several articles contained in Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code.

Chapter 22 concerns crimes related to economic activity. I propose changing the law, in particular, setting quite a high amount for bail, 500,000 rubles [$17,000] minimum in serious cases, and 100,000 rubles minimum for minor offences.

I think that, when it comes to bail, we should permit the use of not just money but also real estate and securities too, shares and bonds, but only those with an actual value on the market. These measures should help to decriminalise our society, modernise the laws and develop a modern and effective penal system.

I want to stress that penalties for such [economic] offences should be ineludible, but at the same time commensurate with the acts committed, and that the restraints applied should not be a punishment in themselves.

I also note that our penal system still has a whole number of problems and I hope that my proposals will go at least some way towards preventing possibilities for corrupt law enforcement officials to use arrest and pre-trial imprisonment for raider purposes, because we all know that there are more than enough such cases. Corrupt officials get the word from an entrepreneurs competitor, put the entrepreneur behind bars, and then let him out after he coughs up a certain sum. Thats how the scheme works. If you know such examples you can share them with us if you want, but the time has come to put an end to this anarchy. I will submit a draft law on this matter to the State Duma within the next few days.

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Д.Медведев.Предпринимательское сообщество.26.02.10

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