Цитаты
Человек должен заново открыть в своей душе глубочайший смысл ответственности перед миром, что означает ответственность перед чем-то высшим, чем сам человек. Вацлав Гавел |
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Statement in connection with suggestions about creation of municipal militia
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 Important amendments were suggested for the federal law “On general principles of arrangement of local self-government in RF” giving a right to create the municipal militia to local authorities. First deputy chairman of committee of the State Duma of RF on civil, criminal, arbitral and procedural legislation Andrey Nazarov is the author of amendments.
These amendments should be considered within general attempts to correct the situation with maintenance of a public order. Reforms of law-enforcement system make no progress. Reduction of staff, reforming of subdivisions of Ministry of home affairs (MVD) did not yield expected effect. And sensational renaming of “militia” into “police” certainly could not lead to substantial changes in activity of militiamen. On the contrary, this is a strange coincidence that percentage of criminal cases solved after renaming in MVD decreased quickly: according to some data, in Moscow percentage of especially grave criminal cases solved decreased by 11% since beginning of this year, and for thefts it fell down to 17% at all.
Moreover, reduction of staff just aggravated the situation. Percentage of criminal cases solved decreased to a great extent due to the reason that not inflated staff officers but staff of operative subdivisions was subject to reduction. Thus, according to former senior district police officer from Voronezh Roman Khabarov, “three years ago there were 42 district militia officers in our department and now 25 of them remained in police department. And the city population only grows”. And this takes place all around the country. Many dismissed militiamen failed to find job: as the minister of home affairs of RF Rashid Nurgaliyev stated, 11 thousand former militiamen remain unemployed for October 2011.
Director of Moscow bureau for human rights Alexander Brod: “The whole set of these principal reasons – shortage of staff in police and at the same time unemployment of many former MVD employees – causes natural idea about creation of subdivisions that could render assistance to the police in maintenance of a public order and simultaneously be a source of new workplaces”.
Idea of assistance to the police (militia) is not new: already in the USSR public associations – so-called “public order squads” – were of mass character. They consisted of several citizens who went along the streets of their district and gave signals to the militia about noticed delinquencies. It was right the idea of “public order squads” that became a basis for amendments concerning introduction of institution of “municipal militia” suggested by A. Nazarov: “During recent years 36 thousand associations were active in the country consisting of about 400 thousand people, and about 40 thousand crimes are annually solved with the help of members of voluntary police”. In this connection necessity appears to create a legal base for activity of so-called “assistants” of police – to be exact, of municipal militia”.
It is supposed that municipal policemen would patrol the streets, reveal or suppress just administrative delinquencies, and the crimes as such would be investigated by the police.
In general the idea looks attractive as it solves several burning problems at once. But it looks very ungrounded and half-done yet in the proposed formulas. It is still unclear whether these subdivisions would be of professional character. But in Soviet time the members of “public order squads” did not get money for their activity, they earned several days off at most, and now the acting public order squads are absolutely voluntary associations of citizens. Distinct status of employees of municipal militia is not seen in amendments and explanations to them – it seems transport but not arms and special means would be provided for them. It is also unclear what delinquencies exactly would they be able to suppress in these circumstances and what would be their authorities. And the main thing – how would municipal militia be financed? If it deals with some semi-civil unit the members of which get, say, some privileges and increments to their principal salary – this is one thing; and if this is a professional militia where thousands former militiamen would serve among others, big expenses of local budgets would be necessary for their maintenance and salary. Would the municipal authorities be able to find necessary funds and would they want to look for them? Besides, current system of financing of the police is built according to a vertical principle and its reforming is not completed yet; thus, creation of municipal militia may cause confusion in reorganization of MVD and is untimely yet – at least the head of committee of the State Duma of RF on security Vladimir Vasilyev thinks so.
Thus, the suggestions on creation of municipal militia require thorough elaboration. |
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