MOSCOW, December 4 (Itar-Tass) — Chairwoman of the State Duma Committee for Security and Counteraction to Corruption Irina Yarovaya from the United Russia faction offers to confiscate the property from the former state officials, who were found guilty of corruption. Yarovaya told a press conference on Tuesday that she will draft relevant amendments in the legislation.
The lawmaker noted that the Russian Criminal Code is proposed to be supplemented with such articles as “violations of the requirements for the fulfilment of the state municipal order, violations of the requirements for the fulfilment of the state defence order and the misappropriation of state and municipal funds.”
“Meanwhile, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office should be vested with the powers to file lawsuits on new corpuses delicti for the state confiscation of the property of people, who committed corruption crimes. It is needed so that for this period of time when this official worked at the post, the lawfulness of the purchase of any property would be checked thoroughly,” Yarovaya said.
The level of responsibility for such crimes “should be considerably higher than for economic crimes,” she said.
Yarovaya recalled that the sentence for economic crimes does not exceed ten years in prison. “We believe that the lower level (of punishment) and a sentence of up to 20 years (for corruption crimes) should be set,” the chairwoman of the State Duma committee said.
A separate article, which will encompass all kinds of corruption offences, should be introduced in Article 10 of the Russian Criminal Code, the lawmaker believes. This criminal article should include current corpuses delicti (the taking and giving of a bribe, office forgery, the abuse of powers and etc), as well as new criminal articles, which the lawmakers offer, particularly over the violations in the state defence order.
Meanwhile, the law, which threatens the state officials with their property confiscation, was already enacted. This is the law, which compels the state officials, who occupy the public posts (including the deputies of the State Duma and the senators of the Federation Council), the posts at the federal public service and the state civil service, as well as the municipal posts, reporting not only about their incomes, but also about their expenses. These declarations of their expenses should include the deals over the purchase of land plots, real estate, cars, securities and shares, if the sum of a deal exceeds the aggregate income of a public servant and his wife (husband) for the last three years, which preceded the fulfilment of the deal. The state officials will have to report about the sources of their incomes, from which the deal was funded.
“The sufficient information” that he, his wife or underage children had struck a deal at the sum, which exceeds their aggregate income for three years, will be the reason for putting the expenses of these people under control. This information can be produced in the written form by the law enforcement agencies or the state agencies or the officers of the departments for the prevention of corruption and other crimes, political parties, the Public Chamber or the Russian national media. The unnamed information cannot be a reason for an inquiry.
The public servants will face dismissal for the non-fulfilment of these requirements. If a public servant fails to prove that the property was purchased lawfully, it will be passed in the state property under the court verdict.