Russia has completed fewer than half of the Council of Europe's recommendations on fighting corruption, though the Prosecutor General's Office contended that some of the proposals could not be fulfilled, while others are still being readied.
The Prosecutor General's Office has sent to the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption, or GRECO, its report on how Russia is fulfilling the recommendations it received in December 2008 after two rounds of checks, a Kremlin official told Vedomosti.
GRECO's executive secretary, Wolfgang Rau, confirmed that the report had been sent.
The group's experts will now study the document and offer a grade in November, at GRECO's 49th session, for Russia's leadership on its fight against corruption.
According to a draft of the report obtained by Vedomosti, just 12 of the recommendations were completed in full: a plan and strategy for fighting corruption were approved; a law on countering corruption was passed; public activists were allowed broader participation in the president's anti-corruption council; criteria were introduced for hiring prosecutors; judges received the right to contest their dismissal; the public was given wider access to information on the work of courts and state bodies; public reports on bureaucrats and law enforcement officials were introduced; and commissions were formed within state bodies to probe conflicts of interest.
Six recommendations were not fulfilled, while eight were partially met.
Russia did not follow through on the creation of administrative courts to contest the actions of the state. The Prosecutor General's Office said a law on the matter, first introduced to the State Duma in 2000, is languishing because of opposition from the government and the presidential administration, although it also said a special law should not be needed for citizens to defend their rights in the regular courts.
The law was proposed by the Supreme Court and even passed in a first reading during a wave of anti-corruption sentiment in 2008. But the government's official position on the bill says it needs more work to establish the courts' jurisdiction and a list of state bodies whose actions could be contested.
The question has been under discussion for ages and a solution would require solving a multitude of organizational, personnel and financial problems, said Vladimir Pligin, chairman of the State Duma's Constitution and State Affairs Committee.
Russia also failed to reduce the number of people with immunity from criminal prosecution.
The Prosecutor General's Office noted, however, that President Dmitry Medvedev's package of anti-corruption measures in 2008 essentially removed immunity for prosecutors, investigators and regional lawmakers. The only privilege now shielding them from unjustified prosecution is a requirement that the case be opened by higher-ranking investigative officials.
Medvedev has also simplified the procedure for filing charges against deputies, senators, judges and prosecutors by eliminating the need for a decision from a panel of judges.
But Mikhail Grishankov, deputy head of the Duma's Security Committee, said he considered the recommendation unfulfilled. Medvedev's changes do not reduce the number of people with special legal status under Article 447 of the Criminal Procedural Code — which is not even mentioned in the amendments. They merely simplify the "special procedure" for them, he said.
The lawmaker proposed removing immunity for all prosecutors, investigators, lawyers and election commission members.
Another unfulfilled recommendation was a ban on presents for state officials. The prosecutors wrote that they developed amendments to Article 575 of the Civil Code that let officials keep gifts worth up to 3,000 rubles, or about $100. Anything more valuable would be handed over to the official's agency.
But since guidelines for implementing the law still have not been developed, the rules have not taken effect, Grishankov said.
"It's absolutely impossible to imagine how these rules would work, for example, in the Caucasus. Unlike bribes, presents are not a serious problem," a Kremlin official said.
The state also has not widened the number of corruption-related crimes that can be punished by property confiscation. The prosecutors' report said they had a full two projects in the works, however.
Prosecutors want to be able to seize property for fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement, money laundering, commercial bribery and giving bribes. The Justice Ministry has proposed its own list, with money laundering, abuse of authority and receiving bribes.
Another shortfall was the failure to demarcate responsibilities for investigating corruption cases.
Proposed amendments to Article 151 of the Criminal Procedural Code would give the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office primary responsibility for combating bribery — except in cases where the Interior Ministry has uncovered bribery during its own investigations, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
A Kremlin official said the changes could not be implemented in a timely manner because of infighting within law enforcement agencies and a lack of political will to end the dispute.
The presidential administration is not planning to introduce any bills on corruption in the near future, a source said, adding that one of GRECO's recommendations could be fulfilled after prosecutors sent in their report. Lawmakers might approve a Code of Ethics for civil servants, which Medvedev plans to announce during a meeting with the heads of regional legislatures on Wednesday, the Kremlin official said.
Russia completed about half of the recommendations and tried to "sneak through" the rest, said Yelena Panfilova, head of Transparency International's Moscow office. In some instances, the vague formulation of the recommendations made that possible, such as the call to "revise the provisions underlying the existing procedures for removing immunity," she said.
As a result, Russia could end up receiving a poor mark from GRECO, which is not fond of promises, said an official close to the presidential council on fighting corruption. Under the standard procedure for considering such reports, Russia would need to show that it completed a minimum of 18 recommendations, the source said.
Rau, the GRECO executive secretary, said there was no specific number that needed to be fulfilled to avoid sanction.
"A conclusion is delivered for each specific recommendation. The result is an overall picture, which GRECO uses to make additional decisions," he said.
If the situation in a country is deemed generally unsatisfactory, a special procedure could be proposed, such as reducing the time frame — typically 18 months — for presenting a follow-up report on completion of the recommendations, Rau said.
The most important thing is that the report and the recommendations are widely available for discussion, he said.
The Prosecutor General's Office declined to comment on the report.