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Putin says govt will analyze world practice in juvenile justice

“We’re fully aware of the arbitrary steps that bureaucrats make now and then and we can’t and won’t allow anything of that sort here,” he said

ROSTOV-ON-DON, March 29 (Itar-Tass) – Russian authorities will analyze the current world practice in the field of juvenile justice and they will not permit any red-tape arbitrariness there, President Vladimir Putin said Friday at a conference of the All-Russia People’s Front.

He said it in response to a complaint by a female participant who said there have been cases of groundless removal of children from families by guardianship and custodianship agencies.

Putin recalled that Russia’s Constitution does not contain the notion of juvenile justice and “before we introduce it we should analyze everything that’s taking place in this sphere in the countries where juvenile justice exists already.”

“We’re fully aware of the arbitrary steps that bureaucrats make now and then and we can’t and won’t allow anything of that sort here,” he said

A total of two bills regarding juvenile justice exist at present. One of them /dealing with juvenile justice directly/ was introduced by President Dmitry Medvedev in 2011 and the other, which deals with social patronage, was drafted in 2012 when Dmitry Medvedev was Prime Minister.

Vladimir Putin voiced assessment of the two acts at the Congress of Parents February 9.

“A number of provisions in the bills on social patronage and control over the ensuring of the rights of orphaned children evoke duplicity of interpretations and obviously contain covert social risks,” he said.

“The two acts fall short of taking into account a full scope of Russia’s family traditions,” Putin went on. “It’s important to avoid a thoughtless replication of alien experiences, especially if one considers the controversies these models cause in the countries where the rules of the so-called juvenile justice are used most broadly.”

“The system really has some pros but it also has very many cons and the public quarters at large are very well aware of them,” he said.

A poll released by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center /VCIOM/ February 8 showed that the majority of Russians oppose the introduction of juvenile justice, as they believe it will erode the institute of the family.