Beginning of Meeting with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika.Part 1
July 27, 2009
Gorki, Moscow Region
Начало встречи с Генеральным прокурором Юрием Чайкой.
27 июля 2009 года
Московская область, Горки
PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Mr Chaika, there are several matters that I would like to discuss.
The first matter is the law on toughening penalties for crimes against the lives and health of children. The State Duma has passed this law, I have signed it, and it is going into effect. We need to ensure proper monitoring in this area and familiarity with the problems therein. Indeed, the problems are enormous, and in this regard, we are in a very difficult position. We need to ensure that the lives and health of minors remain a constant government priority.
Secondly, some time ago, we passed a special law limiting monitoring and auditing small businesses. As far as I understand, we already have some experience employing it. I would like for you to report on the results.
PROSECUTOR GENERAL YURY CHAIKA: Indeed, Mr President, we do already have some experience. This law has been in effect for three months. In my view, it has already led to some positive results. In the last three months, prosecution authorities have received 11,101 requests for permission to conduct unscheduled field audits of small and medium-sized businesses.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Who is making these requests?
YURY CHAIKA: All monitoring and supervising bodies.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: So under the new law, all supervisory authorities must now turn to the Prosecutor Generals Office?
YURY CHAIKA: Thats right. We have denied 4,235 requests nearly 40 percent. There are federal constituent entities where between 50 and 90 percent of audit requests have been denied. These include 28 federal entities, with Moscow and Krasnodar Territory among them. There are ten other federal constituent entities where only 15 percent of requests are denied. Thus, we have monitored and analysed these practices, and I have already sent new instructions on beefing up supervision.
Why do requests get denied? The most common reason is a lack of grounds for making such audits. Another reason is the absence of documents justifying such audits, since we require a certain set of documents in order for the supervisory authorities to present their case to the prosecutors. There are also denials in cases when supervisory agencies attempt to make audits that do not fall under their jurisdiction.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: It seems to me that often, when audits are performed, the supervisory authorities either act in excess of their jurisdiction or according to their own ideas about the extent of their rights and responsibilities.
YURY CHAIKA: We have seen civil litigations on the subject. In Yaroslavl, a denial by a public prosecutor was challenged in court, and the court fully supported the prosecutors position, expressing the view that the prosecutors demands were absolutely reasonable.
We are analysing this judicial experience, monitoring the situation, and shaping the mechanisms of the law application. At some stage supervisory agencies will limit their requests to the public prosecutors for permissions to conduct audits. If these trends continue, then we will come up with an initiative to apply this law to large businesses, as well.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV: There is another relevant matter at stake: not only should we identify administrators who file requests to conduct ill-conceived, unnecessary, and sometimes corruption infested audits, but we should also consider firing them from their posts.
YURY CHAIKA: Beginning on January 1, 2010, we will be ready to keep a register of all audits within the Russian Federation. We are currently working to organise this.
And in the second part of 2009, we will be appealing the necessity of audits by the Interior Ministry, since it essentially audits small and medium businesses under the pretence of conducting investigative work.
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Юрий Чайкаby Dvoitsky879 views
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