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Надежда, в ее глубинном и сильнейшем смысле, - это не просто радость от того, что дела идут хорошо; это способность трудиться ради какой-то цели лишь потому, что эта цель добра и прекрасна, а не потому, что она дает шансы на успех. Вацлав Гавел |
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Expert’s report about problems of counteraction to corruption in Russian Federation in 2008-2011
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During the meeting on problems of counteraction to corruption on May 19, 2008 the President of RF D. Medvedev stated: “We ratified several documents not long ago: these are both Convention of the United Nations against Corruption and Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption; we became a participant of group of states against corruption … we created a whole set of international obligations for ourselves in the sphere of combat against corruption”. Dmitry Medvedev estimated Russian corruption as a system problem to which “we are obliged to oppose a system response”.
The corruption is caused by multi-level departmental structure of management of the state, numerous bureaucratic procedures, endless reporting to say nothing about cupidity of hundreds thousand officials on most various levels. Numerous cheerful reports about successes in combat against corruption, about taken measures, about dismissals and sentences on bribe givers do not change the general picture. Though it seems what can be easier – to start from upper echelons of authority. For example, to check why the state employees, with their comparably low income, drive chic motorcars and build houses at Rublyovka costing millions that even successful businessmen can’t afford. But who and when would do this checking, who needs this? Unlike civilized countries, where independent system of justice functions in such a way that a small bribe to an official of any level is the guarantee of his dismissal and sometimes sentence to imprisonment, in Russia the authority is unaccountable to the society and the court is not independent. No changes can be seen yet in this direction.
Several ways of counteraction to corruption exist: one of them – these are strict retributions for corruption activity but this is not always an efficient way. In particular, in China corruption is punished very toughly, up to execution, but “Transparency International” rating mentioned below is the evidence that this does not help very much. When tough retributions accompany strict moral norms like in Protestant and Moslem countries, the results are much better.
Unfortunately in Russia moral norms for prohibition of theft were never high: since Gogol’s and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s times not so much had changed. But another thing is much worse: the state, all its managerial levels are so much penetrated with corruption that it is the principal gambler in corruption process. And even quite contrite people who solve the problems of business and private problems and don’t want to give bribes – they can’t but do that as otherwise they can give up the lost with their intentions.
So hard tasks for securing of measures that would enable overcoming of corruption in RF confront the state and civil society.
Lack of development of indices and methods of estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures
In the new “National plan for counteraction to corruption for 2010-2011” the President of RF instructed the RF Government together with the Counting chamber of RF to determine the indices for estimation of efficiency of implementation of programs for counteraction to corruption. Besides, the RF President instructed the RF Government in the same Plan to “arrange conduction of sociological studies among all the social strata of population in various regions of the country that would allow estimating the corruption level in Russian Federation and efficiency of taken anti-corruption measures”.
This means that the National plan for counteraction to corruption for 2010-2011 as well as National strategy for counteraction to corruption were formed in the absence of methods for estimation, by government bodies, of efficiency of anti-corruption measures implemented by them. Such situation creates difficulties in forecasting of consequences of anti-corruption measures introduced in our country as well as in control of their execution, and this hampers development and further implementation of the National plan. In particular, the RF Government was instructed in the National plan to stipulate financing of some anti-corruption activities but principles for estimation of efficiency of expenditure of financial funds for these purposes were not provided. Consequently, planning of financing of anti-corruption measures was done without estimates of financial costs for implementation of necessary anti-corruption measures, and this is a serious fault.
In clause 7 of Federal law No 273-FZ dated December 25, 2008 “On counteraction to corruption”, “main directions of activity of government bodies for increase of efficiency of counteraction to corruption” are described. But no clause of the law describes the criteria that would be used by government bodies themselves for estimation of their activity in the sphere of counteraction to corruption. As a result, general efficiency of counteraction to corruption in our country decreases.
Possibilities of estimates of efficiency of anti-corruption measures being external towards government bodies
Estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures taken by government bodies may be executed from outside in current situation. Methods of estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures are developed basing upon monitoring of anti-corruption activities in various spheres proceeding from level of motivation of citizens, businessmen, state and municipal employees to their implementation, and basing upon studying of state statistics data, results of execution of anti-corruption expert examinations and studying of criminal cases on corruption subjects.
Some examples of estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures are presented below basing upon expert estimates of activity of supervisory government bodies and results of sociological studies.
а) Estimate of openness and transparency of activity of government bodies executed in 2011 by Ministry of economic development of RF
One of directions of National strategy for counteraction to corruption is introduction of technologies increasing impartiality and providing transparency of making legislative and other regulatory-legal and managerial decisions, into activity of state and municipal authorities.
From January 1, 2010 the Federal law dated February 9, 2009 No 8-FZ “On provision of access to information about activity of government bodies and municipal bodies” took effect. Fulfillment of norms of such legislative acts is recognized as an anti-corruption measure in modern world community as it expands possibilities of supervision that is independent of government bodies, in particular civil control of their activity. Thus estimates of level of implementation of norms of the Federal law are also estimates of efficiency of counteraction to corruption via achievement of bigger informational openness of government bodies in our country.
In 2011 the Ministry of economic development of Russia executed again the study of “correspondence of official websites of federal executive authority bodies to requirements of legislation about provision of access to information about activity of government bodies and local authorities”.
According to results of this study, “the whole amount of accessible information presented on examined websites of federal executive authority bodies covers the amount that should be actually presented on official websites of federal executive authority bodies in correspondence with requirements of legislation of Russian Federation in force, just by 39,49% in total”.
As a positive tendency in activity of websites of government bodies, the study authors note in particular that “requirements of absence of restrictions for access to information connected with requirement of registration and/or use of protected communication channels were fulfilled for absolute majority of official websites of federal executive authority bodies”. Fulfillment of such requirements is really important for provision of access of all the interested citizens to information about activity of government bodies. But at the same time it should be taken into account that amount of information not exceeding 40% of information about activity of government bodies is obviously insufficient for its efficient control even under conditions of free access of citizens to such information.
According to results of executed study, the report authors came to conclusion that “current state of official websites of federal executive authority bodies does not yet correspond entirely to requirements of Russian legislation in force in the field of provision of access to information about activity of government bodies and local authorities”. Consequently, according to conclusion of specialists of Ministry of economic development of RF, up to now the use of websites of government bodies on the Internet can’t be acknowledged yet to be an efficient anti-corruption measure.
b) Estimate of efficiency of anti-corruption activities by Counting chamber of RF
Board of the Counting chamber of Russian Federation examined intermediate results of expert-analytic activity “Analysis of implementation of programs, measures and activities executed by federal government bodies with the purpose of implementation of National strategy for counteraction to corruption” (in 2010).
It was noted during the Board meeting that legislative and other regulatory legal acts adopted in 2008-2010 formed a sufficient legal base for implementation of National strategy for counteraction to corruption in set directions.
At the same time, it was ascertained during expert-analytic activity that economic character measures envisaged by National strategy for counteraction to corruption are implemented slowly and with insufficient result. Thus, formalization of rights for use of real estate objects and land areas is not completed by ministries and agencies up to the present, and real estate objects are not included into the register of state property in total amount. Work for creation of contract system of state procurement is executed slowly.
It was noted in the Board materials that in 2010 budget allocations with designated purpose for implementation of anti-corruption activities to ministries and agencies were not allotted. Corresponding expenses were executed within approved amount of budget funds for provision of activity of federal government bodies.
Consequently, according to conclusion n of the Counting chamber of RF, in 2010 execution of anti-corruption expert examination of regulatory legal acts as well as economic character measures for counteraction to corruption proved to be not efficient enough.
c) Anti-corruption expert examination of Federal Law “On police”
On July 6, 2011 Center for anti-corruption studies and initiatives “Transparency International – R” (TI-R) presented the results of anti-corruption expert examination of Federal law dated 07.02.2011 No 3-FZ (in edition dated 01.07.2011) “On police”. The reason that made this non-commercial organization execute its own anti-corruption expert examination of the Federal law was the fact that the Ministry of justice did not conduct such an expert examination. And according to requirements of Federal law, all the bills except those submitted by the RF President should be subject to anti-corruption expert examination. The bill “On police” that was introduced into the State Duma of RF by the RF Government on the instructions of the RF President had to be subject to such expert examination. So, according to experts of Center for anti-corruption studies and initiatives “Transparency International – R”, breach of norms of the Federal law dated 17.07.2009 No 172-FZ “On anti-corruption expert examination of regulatory legal acts and draft regulatory legal acts” took place.
According to results of execution of anti-corruption expert examination of the Federal law “On police” the TI-R specialists revealed system problems. Besides, Center TI-R experts “came to conclusion that some norms of the law are corruption-genic but there is no suitable corruption-genic indication in official methods”. For this reason TI-R experts made a conclusion that it was expedient “to conduct a radical revision of existing methods later on with introduction of new notions and details of their definition”.
As an example of corruption-genic indication in the text of the Federal law “On police”, TI-R experts note the fact that chapter 3 of this law determines rights and duties of police while these are only competence and authorities that government bodies including police in universally recognized concepts may be authorized with; and these are only citizens that may be authorized with rights and duties. Consequently, in this aspect the norms of chapter 3 of the Federal law “On police” do not correspond to “legislative definition of police as a constituent of the Ministry of home affairs”.
Another example of availability of corruption-genic signs in the text of the Federal law “On police” detected by TI-R experts is the following: it is noted in item 2 of part 1 of clause 13 that “the following rights are provided to the police for fulfillment of tasks it is entrusted with: to check papers identifying the personalities of citizens if data are available providing grounds to suspect them of committing crime or thinking they are wanted by the police, or if there is a reason for institution of proceedings on administrative delinquency against these citizens as well as there are grounds for their detention in cases envisaged by federal law …”. TI-R experts estimated the formula “data providing grounds to suspect” as most vague and giving indefinitely broad authorities to the police in its law-enforcement practice. TI-R experts note that “considerable part of corruption-genic situations during treatment of citizens by representatives of law-enforcement bodies appear in the course of checking of papers”. They recommend to “cut and simplify the list of reasons for checking of papers and describe the procedure of checking in detail and maximally distinctly” for reduction of corruption risks and also to pick out this procedure into a separate clause of the Federal law.
TI-R experts noted difficulties of access to internal acts of Ministry of home affairs (MVD) of RF that complicated execution of anti-corruption expert examination by them. And “without studying of these acts, it is very difficult to determine presence or absence of corruption-genic factors”. In particular, TI-R experts note that “in the Federal law indication of regulatory-legal act is absent that determines distinctly an open administrative procedure for detection of interest or conflict of interests in the ranks of police employees”. And personal interest and conflict of interests may become factors enabling corruption. So it is necessary to estimate possibilities of regulation of actions of commanding officers and employees of police in such situations maximally impartially. But such possibility was not provided to TI-R experts, and this is the evidence of insufficient level of informational openness of MVD of RF for efficient counteraction to corruption as well as of probable factors promoting corruption in this agency.
Basing upon estimates of norms of the Federal law “On police” and procedure of its putting in force, the following conclusion can be made: norms of Russian legislation and their enforcement do not secure absolute necessity of conduction of anti-corruption expert examinations, and low level of informational openness of activity of government bodies does not provide completeness and impartiality of such expert examinations if they are executed by organizations representing civil society. Besides, numerous corruption factors are available in the text of the Federal law “On police” that do not enable reduction of corruption level in police – whereas the police executes, apart from everything else, the state functions of securing of safety and counteraction to criminality including the corruption one. So it is unlikely that norms of the Federal law “On police” in force and their enforcement would permit counteracting efficiently to corruption in modern Russia.
d) Estimate of efficiency of anti-corruption activities according to results of sociological studies
Comparative analysis of results of sociological studies of corruption conducted in 2008-2011 allows making conclusions about efficiency of impact of anti-corruption measures applied in modern Russia proceeding from dynamics of estimates of corruption level in our country, popularity of corruption practices, ideas of corruption in public consciousness and other criteria.
International non-governmental organization “Transparency International” conducts annual inter-country comparative studies of corruption since 1995, and their results are integrated into so-called “Index of corruption perception”; Russia takes part in these studies since 2000. The studies are based upon the data of several dozen interrogations of experts who reside both in countries–objects of studies and foreign experts. Due to frequent lack of direct data about corruption practice, it is the competence of experts that permits estimating corruption levels in various countries most adequately. At the same time mechanism of integration of expert estimates is of big significance as every separate expert is always partial in some of his estimates. Procedure of averaging of expert estimates chosen by “Transparency International” specialists is not optimal for forming of most impartial estimates of corruption levels in countries of the world. Nevertheless such averaging shows opinion of most Russian and foreign experts concerning the fact what countries of the world have corruption levels being close to our country’s level. “Index of corruption perception” is valuable for analysis of efficiency of application of anti-corruption measures because it allows estimating whether ideas about corruption level in modern Russia change (and if they do, in what way) in consciousness of Russian and foreign experts.
In correspondence with results of recent studies of “Index of corruption perception”, in 2010 Russia got 2,1 numbers (154th place among 178 countries), in 2009 – 2,2 numbers (146th place among 180 countries) and in 2008 – also 2,1 numbers (147th place among 180 countries). In 2010 the numbers similar to those got by Russia were received in “Index of corruption perception” by such countries as Cambodia, Central-African Republic, Comoro islands, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Laos, Papua-New Guinea and Tajikistan. As the level of economic and social development of today’s Russia is much higher than similar levels of these countries, such neighborhood in “Index in corruption perception” means confidence of most Russian and foreign experts that the corruption level in modern Russia corresponds to corruption levels of underdeveloped countries of the world. And as such situation did not change during 2008-2010, total effect of application of anti-corruption measures in our country should be acknowledged to be low and not changing corruption level in modern Russia considerably.
International non-government organization “Transparency International” also conducts comparative inter-country estimations of business corruption since 1999, via determination of probability of use of bribes by private businesses of countries with most developed economy during implementation of their activity abroad of their countries. This study got the title of “Index of bribe givers”.
According to methods of 2011, “Index of bribe givers” is determined basing upon interrogations of experts from developed and developing countries of the world where almost 80% of the world export of goods, services and investments are sold. Index of 2011 ranks 28 states with biggest economies of the world according to correspondence with supposed probability of the fact that companies from these countries would give bribes abroad. To get adequate results, interrogation of experts was conducted right in those countries where private companies from these 28 states included into study are working. Leaders of local private business companies were the experts, and they estimated probability of bribery of foreign companies in their own countries that is of interest for researchers.
Even the most problem-free countries of the world did not get the highest estimate of 10 numbers, and this is the evidence of availability of at least minimal bribery of private countries working abroad of these states. Nevertheless Switzerland and Netherlands, as “Index of bribe givers” leaders, got 8,8 numbers each, and outsiders – China and Russia – 6,5 and 6,1 numbers correspondingly. It is impossible to explain such striking differences in expert estimates by some of their errors so one have to acknowledge that such differences reflect certain regularities of the world economy that is contemporary to us. And in its turn this means that among big economies of the world Russia and China are mostly committed to bribery abroad of their countries. And for today’s Russia such bribery is even more characteristic than for China.
Naturally such place of Russia in “Index of bribe givers” is not too pleasant for representatives of our government bodies. But according to determinative estimates of highly skilled experts attracted by “Transparency International” to formation of “Index of bribe givers”, this is the very result: bribery disseminates from our country all around the world already as a social practice. And this circumstance is in particular quite a significant reason for investors not to trust either to private companies or government bodies of our country with their finance. “Transparency International” experts apprehend that current corruption level in Russian companies affects economic climate and capability to maintain honest competition in some branches of economy, in particular in oil-and-gas sector. So for real reduction of bribery level it would be more productive for private business of our country to recognize impartiality of expert conclusions presented in “Index of bribe givers” than essentially to have their doubts about them – and in its turn this should be accompanied by recognition of very poor, inefficient impact of anti-corruption measures of recent years upon corruption level in Russian private business.
In mass and most representative for Russia questionnaire interrogation about corruption conducted in October 2010 together by INDEM Fund and Fund “Public opinion”, “an attempt was made to find out how, according to feelings of citizens of Russian Federation, the scope of corruption changes during recent time. 16 questions were asked to respondents concerning the subject whether more or less of corruption appeared during recent two years in some institutions and circumstances of everyday life (at various public services markets)”.
According to data of the study, quite a lot of respondents (from 41 to 51%) noted lack of changes in situation with corruption in various social spheres, many respondents had difficulties with answering such questions (from 20 to 40%). Nevertheless final indicators of corruption growth proved to be statistically significant; they are calculated as difference of per cents of respondents’ answers about the subject “it became more of corruption” and “it became less of corruption”. Values of indicators show that, in the opinion of citizens, the corruption level grew to the greatest extent in higher educational institutions (during entering, learning in them and during transfer from one to another), in interactions with GIBDD (traffic police), during getting of nominally free medical aid that is provided to citizens for bribes more and more often. Corruption level grew a little less, but it did grew (in the order of decrease of this index): in preschool institutions, during getting employment or during career growth, during getting of housing and communal services, in secondary schools, during reception, registration or privatizing of accommodation, during purchase and registration of land areas, in situation of conscription to military service, during appeals to militia (the study was conducted in October 2010), during registration of deals with real estate and during appeals to courts. And only in case of registration and reception of passports the citizens did not note the growth of corruption level, and in situations with legalization and recalculation of pensions and social benefits they marked notable reduction of corruption level during recent years.
Respondents-citizens were also interrogated how they estimated general direction of changes of corruption level in their human settlement, region and in the whole Russian Federation. For each of these items most answers were received that the corruption level did not change: in their human settlement 51% noted this, in their region – 47%, in the whole Russian Federation – 40% of respondents did. Thus, most citizens think that corruption grew on the levels of regions and country in general, and that corruption remained invariable on the level of their human settlements.
Thus both international expert estimates and Russian sociological studies prove that corruption level in Russian Federation does not just decrease but even grows during recent years. Such results of studies should be estimated again like confirmations of low efficiency of anti-corruption measures during the period of 2008-2011.
Conclusions and recommendations
Results of analysis of efficiency of anti-corruption measures presented above are the evidence that anti-corruption measures in 2008-2011 proved to be inefficient both in general in the country and in separate spheres of activity and life of its citizens.
Openness and transparency of activity of government bodies increase very slowly, if they do at all, making no considerable influence upon reduction of corruption level in the country. Conduction of anti-corruption expert examination of regulatory legal acts is not enough efficient as well as measures for counteraction to corruption of economic character. Text of the Federal law dated 07.02.2011 No 3-FZ (in edition of 01.07.2011) “On police” contains numerous corruption-genic norms that do not enable reduction of corruption level in police and so do not permit counteracting efficiently to corruption in today’s Russia.
In correspondence with results of recent studies of “Index of corruption perception” conducted by international non-government organization “Transparency International”, in 2008-2010 position of Russia among other countries of the world actually does not change. The fact that highly skilled experts attracted to formation of “Index of corruption perception” do not notice considerable reduction of corruption level in our country during recent years is the evidence of inefficiency of anti-corruption measures applied in our country during this period.
Results of study of “Index of bribe givers” also conducted by “Transparency International” show that in 2011 private business of Russia proved to be the most subject to bribery abroad of our country in comparison with other big economies of the world. This fact reflects the opinion being most wide-spread among foreign investors that they should not trust either to private companies or government bodies of our country with their finance (and in its turn this hampers modernization of Russian considerably). Indicators of “Index of bribe givers” confirm that anti-corruption measures of recent years proved to be practically incapable to reduce corruption in private business of our country.
According to results of questionnaire interrogation being representative for Russia about corruption that was conducted in October 2010 together by INDEM Fund and Fund “Public opinion”, considerable number of respondents (from 41 to 51%) did not notice reduction of corruption level in various spheres of their lives, and in the opinion of other respondents the corruption level grew in all the spheres of life during recent two years. The citizens noted just local successes in corruption reduction during legalization and recalculation of pensions and social benefits. This is the evidence that in everyday life application of anti-corruption measures proved to be poorly efficient in 2008-2011 too.
Director of Moscow bureau for human rights Alexander Brod: “Relatively low level of informational openness of Russian government bodies decreases possibilities for citizens, public, non-commercial and research organizations to analyze made decisions and other activity of government bodies. Government bodies in our country still act to a great extent without considerable civil control that is a significant restraint for corruption in developed countries of the world, and efficiency of anti-corruption measures decreases due to this. Level of openness of Russian government bodies should be considerably increased including provision of information about their activity on their official websites on the Internet: citizens must have a possibility to familiarize not just with decisions that are already made by government bodies but also with problems that are discussed in government bodies and with variants of chosen and made decisions”.
Estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures applied in Russian Federation is one of most important factors they might promote considerable reduction of corruption level in our country. Planning of effect of application of various anti-corruption measures is necessary for this as well as their correction according to results of estimation of efficiency of their application. But at present the methods of system monitoring of efficiency of anti-corruption measures are not developed in Russian Federation, and such monitoring is not executed. Only separate anti-corruption measures are estimated periodically according to various methods that are often incomparable by their results. Such situation essentially decreases both general efficiency of anti-corruption measures and efficiency of each of them separately.
Thus, it is necessary to develop methods for estimation of efficiency of anti-corruption measures and estimates of their efficiency according to results of application – both of each of them separately and in general, within permanently conducted monitoring. It is also desirable to develop recommendations for external, towards government bodies, estimates of efficiency of anti-corruption measures – on the part of public and non-commercial organizations, sociological centers and other research organizations. System monitoring of efficiency of anti-corruption measures conducted by both government bodies themselves and organizations being independent of them would enable reduction of corruption level in our country considerably. |
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