News Release
21.01.2010
The draft law "About police" published in the Internet which should considerably improve the relations of the society and the law enforcement officers caused the Russians' intense interest. Over the first few hours hundreds of web users visited the website where the document was published. After almost a week after the publication of the draft law several thousand comments were submitted.
The deputy RF Minister of Interior, state secretary major general of militia Sergey Bulavin gave an exclusive interview to ITAR-TASS to tell how the Ministry of Interior of Russia will consider opinions of citizens when finalizing the draft law and what the new law has in store for the law enforcement bodies.
- Sergey Petrovich, among the higher officials of the Ministry you are responsible for the development of the draft law. Now that the document is published the citizens have engaged themselves in a lively discussion and make comments. Did you expect such interest?
- First I would like to confirm that the citizens' interest in the draft law is enormous indeed, which pleases me, frankly speaking. This means, people are really interested in reforming the bodies of law and order, their improvement. The citizens' opinion in this respect is of great value for us, for the opinion of usual people is what counts as far as the evaluation of the police activity is concerned. I fairly admit we did expect such a reaction of the society. It confirms we have chosen the right way of reforming the law enforcement bodies.
I should personally assure all citizens who have submitted their comments that they will be definitely analyzed and taken into consideration while preparing the final edition of the draft law. For this purpose, a special working group is established at the Ministry of Interior of Russia. I will separately emphasize while developing the new law we considered international rules, the Policeman's Code, the rules of application of weapons and special means formulated by the United Nations' documents. Therefore the law is consistent with all world standards in this sphere.
- Do you think unsubstantiated statements made just for the fun of it prevail or do people scrutiny the draft law thoroughly indeed trying to understand, then come up with expedient suggestions?
- Citizens really want to get to the very essence and contribute to the creation of a high-grade legislative foundation for the activity of the law and order bodies. We are immensely pleased with this sincere desire. There are no sneers or waspish remarks, you know. People understand that developing and enacting such a significant document is a labor-consuming and difficult process and do their utmost indeed to help us.
According to social surveys, most of our citizens are seriously concerned about the high level of criminality in the country, some are dissatisfied with the quality of work of law enforcement bodies. Now they have a real opportunity to positively influence the situation, to change something. Therefore, the law is developed based on a model of partnership of the police and the society. According to this principle the police is not over the society but serves it.
- The draft law contains a lot of disputable items which have already evoked criticism of human rights defenders such as the application of electric shockers and dogs, unhindered access to houses and apartments, personal inspections...
- Yes, these are among the most intensely discussed matters. When some people are dissatisfied with something this is understandable, because pleasing everybody is impossible. At the same time I would like to emphasize that police are a law enforcement body authorized to apply state enforcement measures including the physical force, special means and fire arms. The police are not what people should like or dislike, before everything else it should efficiently carry out their duties of protecting the lives, health, rights and freedoms of citizens, counteracting the criminality, protecting the public order, the property and providing the public safety. For a law-abiding citizen police are an ally and a partner.
The developers' initial intention was to protect the rights of citizens and organizations as much as possible, to make these measures applicable only in special cases, regulating the factors of such application in detail.
- According to the President's order, the draft law mandates the public control over the police activity. How will it be conducted in practice?
- According to article 52 of the draft law the police activity will be under public control of citizens, public associations, the Public chamber as well as public councils established at the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation and its territorial bodies. They will comprise representatives of the mass media, public associations, workers of culture, science and arts as well as representatives of religious faiths, human rights defenders.
I assure you that police authorities are interested themselves in the civil control, for the opinion of the population, as I already said, is legally declared one of decisive criteria in the system of evaluation of the overall performance.
- Sergey Petrovich, many people wonder about shooting the intercourse between militia officers and citizens with their cameras. Is there already a legal provision of how it will be carried out in practice?
- This issue is being solved already, especially in the traffic safety maintenance sphere. In pursuance of the federal target program of increasing traffic safety in 2006-2012, technical facilities of automatic registration of offences are being installed.
The Ministry of Interior intends to use video cameras more and more extensively every year, not only to provide traffic safety, but also to protect the law in order in public places. For several years, the system "Safe city" which also assumes arrangement of video surveillance systems has been developed in large cities. The general idea is that police employees will monitor the situation in departments, in alert departments. In case the situation aggravates so that offences or crimes are committed, the law enforcement forces will immediately arrive on the scene. Therefore, we can reduce the number of patrol squads and concentrate them in places with aggravated operative circumstances.
Basically, we have not invented anything new about it, these are natural measures taken by the whole world police community today. I traveled with my colleagues to Greece, to Great Britain more than once and saw that the cities are under absolute control to video cameras and this does not hurt anybody. Yet when a crime or an offence is committed a policeman is already there.
Besides, all policemen will unexceptionally have computers connected directly to databases of the Ministry. They will make it possible to check all the necessary information, for example to identify a person, to see whether the person is wanted or had a previous conviction.
- The new law specifies stricter requirements to police employees, the number of reasons for dismissing an employee from service has considerably increased. Don't you think this could cause an outflow of employees?
- I do not think so. There are reasons for these stricter requirements to policemen. These people are going to work with the population and being representatives of public authorities they should have a measure of responsibility. Employees should have at least a tidy appearance, behave politely and correctly. People should be sure the police will protect them. They should be aware of police being a highly professional body whose employees possess high proficiency in terms of the safety maintenance and the law and order protection. Similar requirements to policemen are also specified in other countries.
We will toughen the discipline and increase the responsibility, which is justified by the challenges and threats the law enforcement bodies face today.
- The law will also make the personnel selection procedure tougher. How will applicants for the police service be chosen? Will there be any control over the already operating employees, I mean, will they have to re-qualify themselves, to undergo psychological testing and so on?
- We pay primary attention to staffing issues. When accepting employees for the police service all restrictions and interdictions provided for by the Federal law "About state civil service of the Russian Federation" will be applicable. Besides, it is additionally defined that a citizen with a previous conviction could not be accepted for service.
The requirements to the personal and professional qualities of police employees have also become tougher. All newcomers shall undergo a psychical and physiological examination, a test for alcohol, drug addiction and other toxic dependences as well as tests to check their moral and psychological, office capacities and other qualities. Operating employees will undergo regular psychological tests and re-qualification procedures.
It is essentially important that candidates for service burdened with drug, alcohol addiction or other dependences as well as mentally unbalanced people have no chances to enter the service.
- The draft law contains almost no social guarantees for policemen, although the president has called them one of priorities.
- The project does not provide for a full range of social security indeed. It preserves the social guarantees contained in the active law. This was made deliberately. The reform of the Ministry of Interior has several stages and components. The first one is the formation of a regulatory framework which is what we were hitherto engaged in. As for the social security, it will be the second component of the reform which assumes that police employees who perform their duties sacrificing their personal time and family interests, risking their lives, should have worthy wages. Each employee should have rights to proper accommodation, a worthy pension, as well as health services. It is a welfare minimum which shows employees they are in demand and necessary to the society. Therefore, a separate law is pending enactment which will regulate the monetary allowance, accommodation opportunities and pensions for all employees of law enforcement bodies.
- The offer to rename militia into police caused lots of disputes. Arguments for and against the renaming are brought forward. Do you think this will yield a positive result?
- Judging by the feedback, most of citizens support this idea. We also conduct great information work explaining to people that it's not the question of changing a name, but the question of improving the quality of work of the law enforcement bodies. Most of employees of law enforcement bodies did not show antagonism to the term "police". As a matter of fact we have been already policemen both inherently and on the outer form. This is how the international police community perceives us. We are members of the Interpol, the international police association.
When we recollect the history of law enforcement bodies, the police in Russia was the first body engaged in the law and order protection. Therefore it is a question of returning to the historical name filling it with the contemporary content.
- Sergey Petrovich, when will the new law be enacted?
- The discussion of the draft law "About police" at the website will continue till September 15, after that the document will be finalized. Our original deadline was December but taking into account the special importance of the draft law, it will be prepared earlier.
It is planned that the president will submit it for consideration to the State Duma in autumn. The new law is expected to come into force starting January 1, 2011.
ITAR-TASS, 13.08.2010