MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for the protection of entrepreneurs’ rights Boris Titov has submitted feedback on the bills ‘On obligatory requirements’ and ‘On state control (supervision)’ worked out within the framework of the reform of supervision activities (‘regulatory guillotine’), to Deputy Prime Minister, Chief of the Government Staff Konstantin Chuychenko. Experts of the ombudsman’s office supported them in general, though stressed the necessity to mark them up due to "a number of fundamental drawbacks."
"Overall the developed drafts of federal laws are backed provided that notes will be taken into account," according to the document (obtained by TASS).
The list of notes compiled by the office says that the latest version of the text of the bill ‘On obligatory requirements’ made at the end of July "narrowed the notion of ‘obligatory requirements’"… entirely to requirements set by legislative acts." Consequently, the definition does not include sanitary regulations and standards, All Union State Standard (GOST) requirements and international standards, for example.
"Obviously, not only obligatory requirements set by legislative acts, but also those set by legal acts and technical regulations should be subjects of regulation by the draft federal law," the letter addressed to Deputy PM emphasized. Otherwise, the sanitary and epidemiological environment may deteriorate, Titov believes.
Moreover, experts of the ombudsman’s office suggest that vague definitions of entrepreneurs' responsibility pose "the risks of criminal liability instead of administrative for same violations."
The reform of supervision activities, unofficially called a ‘regulatory guillotine’, envisions remission of all requirements to the business starting 2021 that will not have been revised and updated by that time. It is supposed that all new requirements will be publicly registered and reviewed as to the validity at least once in five years.
The Russian government plans to launch a transition plan on ‘regulatory guillotine’ and start by abolishing the Soviet-era obsolete regulatory documents. The government intends to attract about 40 task groups including businessmen and experts, among them representatives of business associations, think tanks and major companies for developing the reform starting September 2019. Chuychenko has emphasized that when working out draft laws on ‘regulatory guillotine’, the position of experts and businessmen would be taken into account, though the government would have final say.