Government does not approve bill to criminalize non-fulfillment of campaign promises

The government of the Russian Federation gave a negative response to the draft law on criminal liability for non-fulfillment of election promises by people who occupied elective public office. Government recall published on the page of the bill on the website of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

Keeping campaign promises is a political responsibility of an elected official, the government admits. However, “the formalization of this obligation with the establishment of criminal liability for failure to fulfill the pre-election promise using unspecified evaluative formulations may lead to arbitrary enforcement.” The document also lists examples of such vague language: “failure to take all measures in its control”, “well-defined given
in an unconditional form obligation “,” to commit in the future. “

In addition, the bill does not contain statistics and other information that “justify the criminalization” of non-fulfillment of election promises, the government added.

In August, this bill was submitted to parliament by State Duma deputy Oleg Nilov (“Fair Russia – For the truth”). He proposed to prosecute people who, as a result of the elections, took state positions, but did not take “all measures in their power” to fulfill their election promises. As a punishment, the deputy proposed to impose fines in the amount of 100-300 thousand rubles or forced labor for up to a year.

Back in 2007, the then governor of the Stavropol Territory, Alexander Chernogorov, raised the issue of introducing responsibility for failure to fulfill election promises. Shortly thereafter, he was expelled from the United Russia party.

At the end of September 2021, the government did not support a draft law that would oblige officials to report on luxury goods. Then the experts also referred to the vagueness of the wording.

“The draft law does not contain a definition of a luxury item, including one made with the use of precious metals and (or) precious stones, while there is no corresponding definition in the legislation of the Russian Federation. The term “antiques” also has no normative fixation in the legislation. In particular, antiques may have a historical value, but not quite a definite material value, ”the government explained.

As indicated in the conclusion of the Cabinet of Ministers, the absence of objective criteria for classifying property objects into the specified categories, as well as the procedure for confirming ownership of them, will lead to difficulties in law enforcement practice when implementing the provisions proposed by the draft law.

The law, the draft of which was introduced on June 18 by deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, would oblige officials to provide information on each transaction for the acquisition of a luxury item, including precious stones, works of art, antiques, if the total amount of such transactions exceeds the official’s income. transfers RIA Novosti.

In addition, the draft federal law proposes to establish that transactions, the total amount of which exceeds the total income of the relevant person and his spouse, are subject to declaration, indicating the sources of receipt of funds at the expense of which they were made, not for the last three years preceding the reporting period, as it was before, but for two.

At the moment, such information is provided only on transactions for the acquisition of land plots, real estate, transport and securities.