Law & order
Putin Moves to Slash
Penalties for Bribery
The Moscow Times
Dec.
17 2014 20:03
Last edited 20:03
Yevgeny Razumny / Vedomosti Russia ranked 136th
out of 175 countries in Transparency International's latest annual Corruption
Perceptions Index, which was unveiled earlier this month.
Scaling down another
anti-corruption measure, the Kremlin has introduced a bill
to decrease fines for small-scale graft — because nobody pays
them anyway, a presidential envoy said.
A bribe under
25,000 rubles ($366 as of midday Wednesday) is currently punishable with
fines of between 25 and 50 times its size. But a bill drafted
by the office of President Vladimir Putin now proposes to bring
the fine's lower threshold to 10 times the bribe's size.
The minimum fine
for bribe-givers in such cases will be brought down from 15
to five times the bribe's size, according to the bill, which
passed the first of three readings on Tuesday.
For corrupt
officials taking bribes of up to 150,000 rubles ($2,200),
the fine's lower threshold is to be slashed from 20 to 10
times a bribe's size. The time frame for paying will also be
extended from 30 to 60 days, and from three to five years
for those whom the court has allowed to pay
in installments.
Graft can also be
punished with set fines, community service and jail time, all
of which would also be reduced in accordance with the bill.
The bill does not affect bribes that are larger than 150,000 rubles.
The initiative
apparently stems from the lackluster performance of the
anti-corruption measure. Only between 15 and 20 percent of fines
imposed over lesser bribes are actually paid, presidential envoy Garri Minkh
said earlier in comments carried by the TASS news agency.
The Prosecutor
General's Office listed 5,100 cases opened against bribe-givers and 5,400
against bribe-takers between January and October of this year.
Prosecutors' online
statistics did not provide a breakdown of the bribes' sizes or
specify the fines imposed.
Russia ranked 136th out
of 175 countries in Transparency International's latest annual
Corruption Perceptions Index, which was unveiled earlier this month.
The watchdog estimated losses from corruption at $300 billion
in 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available.
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