Д.Медведев.Послание Федеральному Собранию РФ.05.11.08.Part 8

Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.Part 8
November 5, 2008
Grand Kremlin Palace, Moscow

Послание Федеральному Собранию Российской Федерации.Part 8
5 ноября 2008 года
Москва,Большой Кремлёвский дворец

I will not list all of these examples. These cases are well known. What I want to say is that we are not talking about constitutional reform but about adjustments to the Constitution, about adjustments that are important but are nonetheless no more than clarifications and do not change the political and legal essence of the current institutions. These adjustments provide rather an additional resource for the institutions stable work. There is no place for a reforming itch with regard to the Constitution. The Constitution is effective, it works, and its basic provisions should remain unchanged for many years to come. Civic rights and freedoms, the nations sovereignty, the state system and federal organisation, the organisation principles of the judicial system and local self-government, and the other foundations of our constitutional order have been set for a long-term historical period. As the guarantor of the Constitution, I will preserve and protect these fundamental provisions.
Colleagues,
Corruption is the greatest enemy of a free and democratic society. You know that the National Anti-Corruption Plan was signed in July and that I have submitted a corresponding package of draft laws to the State Duma. Their main feature is that they take a comprehensive, systemic and targeted approach. They are designed above all to eradicate the causes of corruption, which has its roots in the shortcomings in our government and economic mechanisms.
Amendments are now being made to the laws regulating the activities of customs officers, Interior Ministry personnel, the staff of the Prosecutor-Generals Office, Federal Security Service, magistrates and court staff, the civil service, municipal staff and others. It is very important that anti-corruption effort focus on prevention measures and on making it not advantageous to practice corruption.
What are the measures proposed?
First, we need to seriously increase the demands on state and municipal officials. By this, I mean requiring them to provide additional information on their incomes and assets, including assets belonging to family members. The truthfulness of these declarations will be carefully verified, even through investigative detective work if necessary.
Second, state and municipal officials should be required to behave in accordance with their codes of ethics. Failure to comply with these rules should result in disciplinary action and, where necessary, in administrative and criminal liability.
Third, measures are being introduced for criminal penalty of abuse of power by people carrying out management functions in non-state organisations. These penalties will correspond to those applied to civil servants.
Fourth, legal entities will be subject to administrative liability for making a bribe on behalf of or in the interests of a legal entity. There are also a whole series of other measures that are well known now.
Furthermore, control will be established over the assets situation of people with special legal status, above all judges.
These measures are strict, but they are necessary. As Nikolai Korkunov, a pre-revolutionary specialist in state law rightly noted, Affirming the law always comes across as an attack on the arbitrariness of those in power. Our preferences here are obvious.
I think that by creating the legal basis for our anti-corruption efforts we will lay a good foundation for this work. This will enable us to build our work in a systemic and consistent fashion and take additional measures should the need arise. I hope that this package of laws will be adopted very soon and successfully put into practice.
Of course, aside from legislative measures we also need to improve the way our state bodies work and optimise and clarify their powers. We need to ensure competition and objectivity when holding tenders and concluding state or municipal contracts. We need to remove unjustified restrictions and prohibitions in economic activity and establish conditions for effective targeted support for people in the social sphere.
Now I would like to say a few words about developing the judicial system. We know that an independent and honest court is the basis for a just public order. As our democratic state grows stronger, the courts will begin to play an even greater role.
The problems of creating a judicial system have in large measure been resolved. This includes expanding the jurisdiction of the courts in dealing with complaints against state bodies and officials, as well as offering compensation for damage done by their illegal actions.

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