This Thursday the 3d of August Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered that Russian Supreme Court and Attorney General’s Office quickly join heads to come up with the new legislation regarding freeing entrepreneurs from detention centres in case no active investigation is taking place.
Russian leader suggested that law enforcement agencies cannot keep convicted businessmen imprisoned, if no investigative operations are present.
“Usually when investigators ask the court to extend pretrial detention, they have no convincing proof of any investigative action taking place, any investigation happening. I think it absolutely justifiable, that if no active operations are conducted regarding their cases, imprisoned citizens, I mean entrepreneurs, must be freed”, – the President told those attending a meeting about implementation of major projects in the Far East region of Russia.
Putin pointed out that “this is the work for the Supreme Court and Attorney General’s Office, the law can be changed, if needed” and underlined that “it is paramount these decisions are made fast.”
Russian Head of State reminded those present at the meeting about existing legislative measures for processing cases of Russian businessmen: according to the current legislation there is a special protocol of procedures that any such investigation must follow. “However, law enforcement agencies often bypass this legally binding article via filing other criminal charges, including fraud, so the investigations take forever to close”, – Putin said. The president also drew attention to the fact that often when the required by law time period of detention runs out police and prosecution simply file a request to extend it.
Putin suggested that organisations consisting of companies should be given a legal right to defend their participants in court.
“We have a structure in place that defends entrepreneurs’ rights. Boris Titov (who is legally authorised to defend the rights of entrepreneurs) and his team, his local representatives. They should be given a legal right to defend their participant’s interests, I mean entrepreneurial organisations – CCI (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) “Support of Russia”, “Business Russia” – represent their organisations’ participants’ interests in court”, – Putin said.
“This, if necessary, can be written in law”, – the Head of State added, – “One does not mean filing collective indictments or cases that represent indefinite number of entities, but representing the interests of certain participants of their organisations – [this is] quite justifiable.”
“This, I hope, will bring some positive vibe into processing the cases connected to entrepreneurial activity or involving the violations of entrepreneurial law. This we will formulate in a separate order”, – Putin explained.
The President also considered banning law enforcement officers from confiscating hard drives and servers as they raid the enterprises.
“Measures that are in the interests of the investigators but lead to the suspension of enterprises’ functioning must be excluded as well as confiscating hard drives from workplace computers and servers. If the investigation requires it, and that necessity may occur, and it is present – it is enough to make copies, notarise them and use them for investigative purposes”, – Putin suggested.
According to the President, “why create circumstances, making it impossible for the enterprise to continue its operations sometimes resulting in inability to pay taxes.”
Moreover, Russian leader ordered to decrease the number and duration of unplanned probes of businessmen.
“Unplanned probes take place, usually, without the required liaison with prosecutor’s office; only 2 – 3% are properly approved, everything else goes unsupervised”, – Putin said, – “Regarding this I deem it possible to limit the number of unplanned probes of entrepreneurs – no more than 30% of the quantity of planned probes, excluding the situations with extraordinary circumstances, emergency situations.”
With regard to the duration of unplanned probes Russian leader said the following: “They are now taking too long to finish. This must be stopped! The time limit for unplanned probes should be set at ten days”, – Putin concluded.
Источник: Новости Mail.ru.
