Verbatim report on President Medvedev's meeting with members of the Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights

27.04.2009
April 15, 2009
The Kremlin, Moscow

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Today is the Council’s first meeting in its new membership composition. Everyone on the Council is present here today. I hope that the Council in its new composition will make a useful contribution to the work of civil society and of the authorities. This is a very important but also very complex task.

Today we will discuss our work priorities, the work in which the public and non-governmental organisations [NGOs] are involved. I will not list all of these different areas of work as you are familiar with them. You are all working on these different tasks, each in your own way, and for the most part have been doing so for a good number of years now. Among the subjects we will discuss will be, of course, modernising the judicial system, fighting corruption and extremism, military reform and the associated legal and social issues. Then there is the subject of humanising our society in general, protecting children’s rights, and finally, there is the crisis, which is affecting all of us.

I want to say a few words about the NGOs themselves. We will discuss the NGOs’ actual operation and status. I realise that you face difficulties in your work and that there are many cases when restrictions are placed on NGOs’ activities without sufficient justification. Of course, this stems from the fact that many civil servants see NGOs and their activities as a threat to their monopoly hold on power. This is probably the case not only here in Russia, but in Russia we have the added weight of our own history, which to this day still has quite a visible effect on relations between the authorities and civil society, between the authorities and the NGOs.

Speaking of the laws on NGOs, I imagine that you have questions regarding such laws, and I am ready to listen to your views and your proposals on how to improve respective legislation. Clearly, the said laws are not perfect, even though we have spent a lot of time over these last years on improving them. I think amendments are possible, and in some cases even necessary. I am referring to all the different issues involved: taxation of NGOs, procedures governing relations between the NGOs and the authorities, public awareness of NGOs’ activities, state support for civil society organisations, the issue of public expert evaluations, and also public hearings on matters of importance for the society. The laws on NGOs’ activities cover all of these different areas, but there is probably still a lot that can be changed.

I want to put particular emphasis on the oft-stated truth that the authorities and human rights activists have huge scope for working together, and we only need to work out how to best combine our efforts. Furthermore, it is no secret that there is a seriously distorted perception of human rights activities in our country. This is due to our history and to some ideological concepts. We need to understand one simple thing: the state itself has a duty to protect human rights, and all those who wish to do so should also be involved in this work. If we pool our efforts and work together, we can perhaps achieve better results.

Another subject I mentioned at the start is the economic crisis. In the crisis situation, we need to reflect on how to build confidence between the authorities and civil society, because we will not get through the crisis without it. There is an objective need for this work today, and it is important to get the NGOs involved in education in every sense of the term, and in healthcare. I hope too that the Council will work actively on the protection of people’s social and labour rights, because these rights are in a particularly difficult situation at the moment. The crisis has led to an increase in the number of wrongful dismissals and cases of people being forced to take lengthy periods of leave from their jobs. Unemployment is on the rise, and this in turn increases poverty. These are our common problems, and we need to work on them together.

I will not spend any more precious time on introductory words. I think we should get straight to work. I propose that Ella Alexandrovna makes her presentation first and then we can discuss all the questions that you may have.

E. PAMFILOVA: Dmitry Anatolyevich!

We have, of course, been extremely diligent in preparing for this first meeting and this is the result of our work. I think that you will have a chance to familiarise yourself with these documents during the course of the presentations. We believe it is very important, in fact, fundamentally important, that we do not just turn up here and empty a load of problems onto you, but if we do highlight a problem and discuss it, that we are prepared to address the problem ourselves and to propose specific and suitable, in our opinion, solutions to you. Of course, it is your prerogative to agree or to disagree with us, to accept our point of view or not to.

So, what would we like to discuss during this meeting? We have divided our questions up into four sections.

The first is the most important and it deals with the strategy for relations between citizens and the authorities during the crisis.

The second relates to key reforms and the participation of society in these reforms. During this meeting we would like to touch upon the question, which will be discussed by my colleagues, about what is happening with the judicial and military reforms. That is all for now. This, of course, has to do with corruption. The courts, corruption – these issues also fall under this section for discussion.

Third is the question of supremacy of law and the realisation of fundamental rights and freedoms, including those that are political. My colleagues will also discuss this matter.

And, fourth, is what appears to be, in our opinion, a very important issue – the emergence of humanitarian awareness within society and the State. This is probably the backbone of the solution for improving relations in the country.

So these are the questions we wanted to discuss with you and to agree on the essence, character and form that our mutual work will take, as well as highlight these priorities during times of crisis and the burning questions to which this Committee could effectively find solutions. We are prepared to take on a large number of problems.

And, if possible, it would, of course, be welcomed if you could let us know what you would like to discuss with the Committee next time, at the next meeting at the end of the year and what part of our work you would be focusing on. We are prepared to monitor seriously social and employment rights. For this meeting, we have prepared the results of our monitoring of the most vulnerable groups: children and small businesses, strange as we believe this may seem. We will present our data on these groups and, concerning the associated problems, we are prepared to undertake monitoring of, for example, the elderly; we also have proposals about the latter.

Regarding the first section on NPOs: I won’t spend too much time on this, my colleagues will discuss the issue in more detail. I would just like to point out that, for a start, you are fully aware of the situation: the pluses and the minuses, the main objections and reactions by socially active parts of society towards the legislation on NPOs. From our perspective, we are adamant about this. Even the objective that was set by the legislators, and some of the legislators had the aim of controlling many organisations in civil society, was not fulfilled. As a result of this bureaucratic burden, many organisations simply preferred to remain unregistered, pushing them into a state of semi-legality. And even those government services that should be co-operating started to understand less and less what is happening to society and their information sources have diminished.

In my opinion, the biggest harm and loss was caused not so much by the changes that were introduced, as much as by the fact that many have simply stopped abiding by the law, since in Russia one often saves oneself from poor legislation through non-adherence. This is also very bad; this also strengthens and increases, let’s say, a nihilistic attitude towards legislation. Most importantly, however, these changes have given birth to a certain atmosphere of mistrust between the government and public institutions, as well as, to be on the safe side, a hypothetical “presumption of guilt” in relation to non-governmental organisations, and primarily those that defend human rights. We are very grateful that you highlighted the importance of human rights organisations in your speech. This is very important to us.

Obviously, and I would like to repeat that, during the times of crisis, NPOs can take on a lot of responsibility. For this reason, members of the Committee are, within the scope of their powers and authorisation, prepared to aid in not only the establishment of a multi-sided and multi-level dialogue between government and social structures, but, more widely, to help in the formation of an anti-crisis coalition. We believe that this is very relevant. For this very reason, we present the question about the need to create a different legal framework for NPOs, one that would be based not on suspicion, but on mutual trust; one that would contribute to their development and to the creation of a benevolent environment. This – the benevolent environment, is probably even more important than the legal and material aspects.

With respect to the second section: when I was preparing for this speech, I was looking at the information that we were working on and, you know, surprisingly, it became apparent that on the flip side of the positive goal towards which we are aiming, that is, the emergence of humanitarian awareness, is the negative side on which appear corruption and the indifference to people themselves and to obligations towards them. From the point of view of responsible people, this is probably the pit into which arbitrary abuse of power and breaches of human rights in any context fall: from environmental issues and scandalous acts of violence towards children, to the limitation of political and social rights. Strange as it may seem, yet it was specifically corruption that turned out to be one of the main factors.

Tamara Georgievna [Morshchakova, retired judge of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Advisor to the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation] will talk about the courts and the pluses and minuses. I will demonstrate only the positive shifts. In our opinion, there have been positive shifts. For example, the Appeal Board of the High Court recently reinstated the authority of Elena Guseva, a judge in Volgograd, who, in opposition to the opinion of the regional judicial community, alone persistently defended the constitutional principle of judicial independence. This establishes an important precedent, which we support, and it would be good if there were more such examples.

I will stop on the following: our concern is nevertheless focused on the state of the entire system of law-enforcement. I will criticise it affectionately, I warn you that it will be with affection, but also in all seriousness. And this has been said many times before: it is true that citizens predominantly perceive law-enforcement agencies not as a form of protection, but as one of the threats to themselves. More as a threat, in fact. The unfounded tendency towards more heavy-handed legislation in a number of cases is also concerning. An in this lies the paradox: in some cases, there is unfounded heavy-handedness and in others - just criminal moral connivance and practically the encouragement of crimes. For example, the recent three year suspended sentence handed down to a paedophile for abusing a 9 year old boy was shocking. Such examples are many and it is difficult to comprehend why we do not have more severe legal punishment in the case of serious crimes, whereas a more harsh approach and amendments are being proposed to the Criminal Code in relation to, for example, treason and espionage. We have been speaking out against, and the Committee has opposed, these amendments that remove espionage cases from jury trials. And we received specific support from you to return to and work through in more detail that which is proposed by the legislature. Today we will present to you further, more specific proposals, in other words, the conclusions of experts, a panel of experts on this matter, based on the fact that, in our opinion, these amendments not only contradict the Constitution, but they also erase the borders between political, law enforcement and scientific activity. We would like you to return to this issue and to pay attention to the extent to which this matter is troubling both many experts and public organisations.

In general, in presenting these proposals to you, we would like those structures that exercise power, including the special forces, to stop this notorious primitive “witch-hunt” on human rights activists and on our small, sometimes marginal opposition, and to focus their efforts. Here, human rights activists could be very good partners in finally exposing the sponsors and creators of criminal networks for the organisation of sexual abuse of children, child pornography, human trafficking, the trafficking of arms, drugs and other crimes, all of which really do threaten national security. We also believe that the legislator should probably hand out more severe punishment in this particular sphere. Specifically around this issue and not in the fight against opposing opinion, human rights activists and other such categories are all really trying to demonstrate their opposition within the boundaries of the law.

We will also present to you a report from the Committee experts, about which Mr. Kabanov will talk in greater detail, on what is happening in the field of business, due to the fact that there is a very high level of corruption among the law-enforcement agencies. We believe that it should be the law-enforcement agencies that should first and foremost expose from within those who are supporting the creation of criminal networks. They should be the first to do this, otherwise, there can be no discussion about the fight against corruption.

I present to you the report “The illegal appropriation of property with the involvement of banks during the financial crisis”. The report presents the most common examples of appropriation from legal owners of assets, used as guarantees for the receipt of credit from banks. In other words, this is actually theft on an immense scale, blatant theft of property using legal means. We will be giving you the report in question. Criminal prosecution methods have also been used widely by the law enforcement agencies for achieving commercial or other goals, including for fighting the competition. This is a very strong objection against them.

We will also present new research to you, which was carried out literally between the 16th of March and the 10th April specifically for today’s session on the request of the Committee. 1325 entrepreneurs of small to medium sized businesses were interviewed. The main conclusion was that officials at different levels do not address seriously the problems of small businesses, but they start paying attention to them only when they need to apply pressure to, say, make them come clean. I will not be presenting examples to you in this case; you will be able to read about them for yourself, there are many interesting facts. Well, for example, one of them: there has not even been any reduction in rent for government property – such complaints are received very frequently – bearing in mind that all private leaseholders have lowered their rents. Furthermore, the promised buy-out of small business properties is bottlenecked and the tax burden has also not decreased, according to these businessmen.

The main conclusion is as follows: the main and, frankly, necessary assistance to small business during the crisis, with the exception of individual sectors and special cases, lies not in financial support, but in the removal of administrative pressure. This is a very important matter.

I would like to highlight in my presentation not the material, not some financial influences that are already much talked about, but to discuss another type of resource. In this particular case, you see, it is asked that the administrative and the material resources are set aside and that human potential is brought forth to decide the problems that currently exist in our society. This is a huge resource, which we are, unfortunately, not using.

Another example: we must also defend businesses. In the situation of growing unemployment, we should be paying greater attention to stable organisations that are capable of supporting the employment market and enabling the social development of the region during the times of crisis.

Information was also obtained by the Committee about the fact that the tax authorities are using the deficiencies of the tax legislation to increase the tax obligations of enterprises of major economic significance. There is a very serious example in the region of Vladimir, as well as in many other regions, where such organisations are having to decrease production and to make staff redundant. The consequences of this are catastrophical and well known in small towns: the increases in unemployment, crime, the impoverishment of the population.

I would like also to pause on one of the most important legal techniques that has long been under discussion: it is the flawed system of criteria used for appraising the law-enforcement agencies. For example, a negative trend in crime statistics is considered to be the result of a lack of action on the part of the police. In this regard, the drive to decrease the statistics of crime, having unrealistically high expectations and not considering the realities of the fight against crime, has become a question of professional survival and this has led to crimes not being recorded. This happens, unfortunately, and we have already spoken about this many times.

The second, no less negative an issue, is the excessive role attributed to the percentage of crimes solved. This has led to law enforcement agencies being practically forced to be an obstacle between citizens and justice. I won’t elaborate further on this topic, but the problem remains, nevertheless. This issue wasn’t even solved by the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the ministerial order of the 5th August 2005, which determines the indicators for the performance of the authorities for internal affairs.

At the same time, guaranteeing citizens’ rights is not considered to be an indicator of the effectiveness of the law enforcement agencies. For example, complaints against the actions of law enforcement agencies are not taken into consideration. Complaints of torture are not investigated in the way they ought to be.

Both the President and we, the Committee, as a collective public advisor, are united in the fight for supremacy of law and order. We are generally prepared to be active in this field, to undertake monitoring projects and to provide you with information which is sent to us on this issue by experts from all regions.

And so about the issue of children. I hope that Svetlana Sorokina and (Alexey Ivanovich) Golovan will discuss the issues concerning children, but I would like to draw your attention to one issue. We all know that now, more than ever, much is being done to improve the situation of children and in this lies your great achievement. For the first time in many years the government has turned to face the problems of children.

But, of course, more needs to be done to radically change the situation. And now one hears and sees the many outrageous acts of physical and mental abuse of children that are different in character, yet similar in the extent of cruelty and indifference. They are all different; I will not name them all. Everyone sees them, hears them, everyone understands what is happening and takes them close to heart. The cases are different, but there is one reason for them. From our perspective there is, of course, on the one hand, the moral and psychological state of society. This is understood; it is a separate issue. Also, there is the lack of a systematic approach to resolving the problems of childhood and of the family. There lacks a proper governmental body that would be capable of formulating such a systematic, contemporary, effective social policy, including a policy relating to families, one that would also be capable of reacting appropriately to all situations that endanger children, one that would be empowered to act as legislator, introducing dynamic legislative initiatives, at the same time as being an intelligent, flexible administrative body. I believe that the biggest reason is that, although numerous resources and efforts are being spent, until the measures used are logically set out in a single framework, they will not work towards the same goals and they will lack coordination. For this reason, many efforts and resources are, if not squandered, then they provide little effect.

The result, let’s say, are the inexcusable delays in signing and in ratifying international agreements that protect children, including those that are addressed at forming preventive, protective, and criminal law mechanisms for fighting all forms of child trafficking, sexual exploitation and sexually predatory behaviour in relation to children. During the past eight years these forms of criminal activity in Russia have increased 30 times and more. The numerous examples we are all inundated with just make one’s hair stand on end. I believe that you receive a lot of correspondence about this issue. It seems that everyone is supportive, everyone is ‘for’ a juvenile justice system, everyone is ‘for’ everything, but the plane can’t take off, it’s still grounded. I understand that it’s more interesting to lobby for other interests – both to the State Duma and to other government structures, but, unfortunately, there is still no heavyweight lobbyist who would really lobby for the interests of children in a systematic and relevant manner.

We are trying to add our two cents by writing some letters: 8 letters on eight different issues. But I think this is probably just a drop in the ocean.

My colleagues will speak about the problem of xenophobia; I’m not going to touch this subject now. I would merely like to give you an example, Dmitry Anatolyevich. This is the textbook that was used by the police of Saint Petersburg. Well, if the police are using a textbook that includes anti-Semitic propaganda, what can we expect from the law enforcement agencies?

Yes, unfortunately, hatred-fuelled violent crimes are multiplying in number and are becoming more and more cruel and dangerous, despite the obvious increased activity on the part of the law enforcement agencies, to give them their due. In this case, a change in atmosphere is probably needed and some sort of sign should be given; a message from above to our law enforcement agencies, our social structures and to society as a whole.

I would like to finish my presentation - I’m not going to bring up a whole series of topics - I just wanted to leave some time for my colleagues. But to conclude I would like to stop once more on the intangible factor. It’s true that what is needed now is the consolidation of efforts of the government and society and this is necessary not only to overcome the, let’s be honest, lengthy crisis, but also for effective development post-crisis. However much of a paradox this may sound, now is the time when it is necessary to think about and act in this regard, not to loose time, nor to postpone the formation of some sort of strategy for building the future, for forming the foundations for the future, including the formation of legal awareness. And, since the crisis is not, in my opinion, merely of a financial and economic nature, but it is actually a crisis of civilisation, influencing all aspects of our daily existence, including the moral, the spiritual, the environmental, socio-cultural and even ideological aspects thereof, I believe that it is important to accentuate, and I would like to repeat this, not the material resources, but the human, individual, potential and capital. It is necessary to first change that which does not require material expenditure, but which is one of the most important factors in overcoming the crisis and subsequent development. I am talking about the psychological and emotional state of society, the types of social and inter-personal relationships, the formation of a humane and benevolent environment for living and thriving in Russian society and changes within its moral climate.

The crisis presents unexpected opportunities and the possibility of unconventional approaches. For example, investments in human capital and social infrastructure are becoming not only more reliable, but actually a life-line to the government and business. The only thing is, accurate mechanisms are required. And, when talking about abuse of power, it cannot be allowed that people, who are more and more frequently falling into difficulties as a result of the crisis, are cornered by both government and businesses as a result of an increase in such abuses of power. Here we are also prepared to perform our role with regard to this issue.

It shouldn’t be the case that people merely survive through the crisis. Whilst combating it, it is important to mobilise, and I would like to say this again, the resources for development. There must be belief in the future – not just living through today. The powers, the so-called elite, I would like to pause in conclusion on this problem, the so-called Russian elite – we need, probably, to foster a new type of elite. But where one does exist, it must, first and foremost, provide an example for the focus on the success, on the emergence of a humanitarian awareness, on the legal foundations of government, on social justice, on following words with actions. Irina Yasina will talk about this in more detail, but I cannot bypass this most important, in my opinion, aspect of the change in relations between the government and society, between society and individuals: from the indifferently embittered and aggressive, sometimes pejorative and offensive, which really do create an environment for lawlessness and breaches of rights, on the one hand, to the protective – on the other hand. This requires not only money, as much as our spiritual strength, and there is no time for warming up, since the process is a lengthy one – the transition to a different quality, to the quality of development.

And so, with respect to our elite, our very own elite: the requirement to declare earnings and assets, is, admittedly, a very important step in the right direction, but, of course, this is only the case if there is also a system for controlling the accuracy of the submitted data and for ensuring responsibility for any fraud or the concealment of any conflicts of interest. But it is also important where such assets are held: whether they are within the country or abroad and, more importantly, where the children of our elite are educated and working and whether they are serving in the Russian army, similarly to the grandchildren of the English queen, and whether they are at all ready to invest their future in Russia, whether they intend to put down roots here or whether it will be in London or elsewhere. These are the key issues that need to be addressed, without which it is impossible to create a system of mutual trust between society and the people who determine our fate, in other words, the elite. This is why I believe this issue to be very important.

And so, by way of conclusion, I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following: I believe that we can accomplish a lot over this year. You can rely on our desire to contribute feasibly, despite all the crises, to the development of the country, so that it can use this crisis for self-development and for change, for quality changes to the situation in the State. Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you, Ella Alexandrovna.¶

So, shall we continue? In a moment I will give the floor to our colleagues, who have prepared presentations in advance. Then I will, of course, allow other people to have their say.

Separately, and before we start, I would like to inform you that everything that we will be discussing, I mean the transcript of our meeting, will be put on our internet site straight away in order to allow all those who are interested in our work and the questions discussed, to receive this information immediately.

Alexander Alexandrovich Auzan, president of the Association of Independent Centres for Economic Analysis. Please proceed.

A. AUZAN: Thank you, Mr President.

Dmitry Anatolyevich! What I am about to speak about is the shared position of the Committee, something we have discussed many times, concerning the question of the need for a fundamental, in our opinion, change in the strategy for relations between the State and society.

For the sake of succinctness, I will try to set out the position in four theses.

First, the relations between the State and society in the new Russia have an existing history and can, of course, already be looked at in retrospect. During the 90s, during the time of development of government agencies, there was practically no thought-through strategy in these relations. More likely, relations developed in response to the demands of that difficult period, yet some quite important legislative foundations were established, some of which are still in place. Actually, a strategy for relations was developed between the years 2000 and 2003. In my opinion, in our opinion, this culminated during the Civil Forum of 2001 which, I believe is well remembered by Vladislav Yuryevich [Surkov] who is here today. This was the announcement of the principle of equal dialogue between the State and society. To a certain degree, this dialogue was taking place, providing the conditions for the reforms of the time for the unwinding of bureaucracy in the existing economic legislation, for the formation of a specific atmosphere or mechanism for relations between society and the authorities.

Actually, a different strategy was employed between 2004 and 2008 that was fairly consistent. This was the strategy where the State was playing a dominant role and was fitting civil society into the socio-political system. The two most important indicators, the landmarks of this strategy, became the creation of the Social Chamber and its use as the sole channel of contact with the government and the introduction of changes to the non-commercial social legislation, which have been in force since 2006. These changes included the repression of certain aspects of the non-commercial sector, the rapid increase in expenses. They created resistance at the time, being concerned with specific questions of registration, reporting and inspections.

It seems that during that period – a period of tactical economic growth for the State – such relations were acceptable, especially since it was practically based on an unofficial understanding that people would accept things in return for economic benefits. For society (a large part of it, anyway) such a strategy was unacceptable. And I would like to underline the fact, Dmitry Anatolyevich, that this strategy did not lead to the diversification of the Russian economy, to entering a modern age and to the development of new institutions, although it did ensure the very important, in reality, commodity of stability.

In your interview with the “Novaya Gazeta”, which was published today, you said that, really, what is required is a new construct, which would combine both prosperity and freedom. And the root of the social contract in Russia is the Constitution of the Russian Federation. We did not discuss your stance among all the members of Committee, but I would be so bold as to suppose, that in relation to this question, Mr President, both your position and that of the Committee are one. So, for this reason and coming to it from this angle, what is required is a fundamental change in the strategy of the State in its relations with society, which would provide results both in achieving the goals of modernisation and in overcoming the conditions of the crisis.

The second thesis is about what calls, in your opinion, the new strategy should be answering. Government responsibility has actually widened during the time of the crisis, something which was necessary: this has happened in many countries. At the same time, the number and complexity of the problems occurring was growing in such a way as to overtake it. In such circumstances, the government faces real problems on a wide front which it can’t, let’s be blunt, deal with very effectively in completing its government functions. So, specifically in the interests of the government – what, in our opinion, are the necessary functions of society in the current circumstances? For a start, active, self-organised groups are taking on part of the work by providing help to themselves and to others and in this lies the path to modernisation; it is in this independent work.

Secondly, non-political social organisations can assume the feed-back role where party-political organisations are weak. Without this, it is impossible to improve the effectiveness of government agencies. From this stems the third thesis, about how we perceive this strategy.

We believe that this strategy is composed of three mutually linked courses for change. First, the support for self-organisation in society. This implies, in our opinion, very fast, symbolically important changes to the legislation of 2006 that can’t be delayed in relation to registration, reporting and inspections. We have already presented materials on numerous occasions on this issue and are prepared to present these again, both in relation to the results of the research and about the proposals. Following on from this, comes working in partnership to develop new legislation, both covering charitable works and taxation, but first of all, what is needed is an important symbolical step.

Secondly, support is required for social control and monitoring. The procedures for this have in many ways been written, but this required the implementation of regulatory and budgetary decisions. But, most importantly, we were talking equally about those areas which you mentioned in your introduction, Dmitry Anatolyevich, in other words, about the labour markets, the environment for small and medium sized businesses, about the courts, about anti-corruption. This problem here is not just to implement controls and monitoring, both of which already exist, but to ensure that the results of these are taken into account; a mechanism is required for decision making on the basis of these findings.

And, finally, the third issue – this is the development of social engagement. Actually, we believe that this corresponds to both the spirit and the letter of those 10 points on the development of democracy, which you spoke about in your Address to Federal Congress. In question here is the engagement of society in such areas, as local government, the problems of the environment, social protection of children, et cetera. All of this should, in our opinion, provide specific results. The fourth thesis concerns meaning. The importance of meaning lies not just in returning to equal dialogue, there’s no need to cover the same thing twice, and these times are also much harder and more difficult. What is required is not just dialogue, but actions. What we are actually talking about is a form of partnership between the State and society in the form of a wide social anti-crisis coalition which would have a broad agenda, covering both the sphere of economics, in which anti-corruption and anti-monopolistic questions are linked to those who hamper exit from the vicious circle, as well as the socio-political sphere, where the search for numerous solutions to the crisis on numerous different levels requires openness. Political competition in the context of partnership of the government and society could produce reliable results by dividing the responsibility for the type of politics used to counteract the crisis and for the politics of modernisation with various active social organisations also in terms of outward-facing politics, since social organisations have both the possibility to exert influence in the international arena, as well as having the tools of social diplomacy.

To conclude, I believe that, in this case, we would be working not just on the problems of the crisis, but for the future of Russia, since we are talking about valuable moves, about the fact that if the government pays greater attention to openness and provides greater freedoms and if society were to value more highly the concepts of solidarity, of help to others, of justice, then we would possess the best conditions for modernisation. At the moment, however, I believe that it is important for us to obtain your reaction, Mr. President, to the introduction of the new strategy, to support for self-organisation and for social controls and monitoring, as well as to the development of social engagement. Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you, Alexander Alexandrovich.

Please proceed, Yaroslav Ivanovich Kuzminov.

Ya. KUZMINOV: Dmitry Anatolyevich, colleagues! The composition of this Committee guarantees that its work reflects the existing differing opinions on the condition of Russian society, on human rights in our country, on the support for social activity and the support of NPOs. This is very important.

However, it is probably no less important for all of us to ground ourselves in the objective aspects of the situation, including obtaining a clear understanding of the realistic scale of social activity, the real concerns of ordinary NPOs, the perception of human rights by ordinary citizens, their opinion of how their constitutional rights should be exercised. This is the subject of the monitoring research of society and social organisations that we have been undertaking since 2006, in cooperation with a row of leading sociological agencies. On your desk is an extract from this monitoring research, which we have provided to you.

Overall, the research undertaken convinces us of the following: during the past 10 years, self- organisations by citizens, especially those that have been set up locally, have for the first time really taken root, although the extent and effectiveness of such organisations is still obviously inadequate.

In the 90s, civil society structures in Russia were reliant in many ways on, in a way, the importing of resources and even ideas from abroad, although these have, on the whole, played a positive role. Now, though, in the first decade of the 21st century, the ideas, the resources, the achievements, the enthusiasm, the abuses of power in certain NPOs, government support and government oversights – all of these are of our own creation.

The slides briefly describe the general state of self-organisation in the country. The amount of trust in society and the economy has fallen twofold in comparison with the ‘80s. At the moment, it constitutes no more than 20 per cent against the 50 that were and it didn’t increase even during the period of economic growth. People’s readiness to unite has fallen and, furthermore, the work of Russian NPOs is obviously counteracting this tendency towards the destruction of social trust. The number of people, involved in social activity through NPOs, is growing, but primarily through volunteering. This has increased over five years from 15 to 20 per cent, according to our surveys. Approximately 10 million people are currently involved in voluntary work and other work involving NPOs and two thirds of Russians believe that NPOs are necessary. This is not too insignificant when compared with the amount of political activity that exists and activity significantly intensifies as soon as there are issues concerning local or close people and problems. In addition, when talking about the extent of participation in NPOs, we should consider that more than a third of the presented numbers is represented by members of home owners’ and gardeners’ collectives. In other words, these are a sort of, what I would call “primary self-organisation for one’s own benefit”, not for others, but for oneself, which is the first step in the self-organisation of people.

On slide 17 you can see that the majority of citizens attribute paramount importance to social rights, whereas the same level of importance is not provided to political rights. At the same time, citizens believe that political rights are the least protected. We can’t remain untroubled by the fact that only 10 per cent of those surveyed consider themselves to be actually entitled to protection from unlawful arrest and torture and only 12 per cent believe that they actually have the right to take part in the running of society; equally, social rights are not considered to be really protected. And, of course, there is little cause for happiness in the fact that only a quarter of the population has felt positive moves in relation to respect for their rights, whereas the same number of people believe that their rights are not respected as well as they used to be.

We will briefly discuss how the situation looks for NPOs and their problems. There are 413 thousand non-governmental, non-profit organisations in this country. A quarter of these are consumer cooperatives; there are only 70 thousand real NPOs. The typical Russian NPO is quite small, a third of them have no employees, the next third has up to 5. Even before the crisis these organisations were normally barely balancing on the edge of financial stability, so this is why the imposition of any burdens and administrative barriers on them is especially painful. The main problems in the work of NPOs (you can see this on slide 33) stem from the lack of material resources and not in any way from a lack of volunteers or interest on the part of society. 60 per cent talk about a lack of material, financial resources and only 8 per cent about a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the population. Furthermore, this is also a problem from the point of view of the authorities. In the majority of cases, this does not relate to the suppression of independent initiatives; little is said about the attempts to control NPOs. The problem lies in something different: it is in the lack of interest or in the lack of consistent policies; the local executive powers are normally unable to utilise the potential of NPOs, to offer them assistance and they don’t understand how they can cooperate with them. At the same time, in many countries the social politics of the State are implemented primarily through NPOs. They operate budgetary programs for social help, they support cultural and further education. For example, NPOs comprise 15 per cent of GDP. For us it is half a percentage point of GDP.

I would also like to mention separately that NPOs shouldn’t in this case be considered as merely a channel for distributing budgetary resources. I’d like to point out, for example, we have a government establishment for this and we use NPOs. Why are NPOs better? NPOs are a way of attracting the financial and non-financial investments of citizens [as additions] to government resources, they are a way of [allocating] responsibility which is currently entirely shouldered by the government in the current circumstances of non-cooperation, where NPOs are not being used in the social sphere, in the social responsibility of the State and local government.

Let us talk about legislation and NPOs. I will continue that which was discussed earlier by Alexander Alexandrovich Azuan. For the most part it was developed in the first half of the ‘90s and it is undeniably in need of a review. It is obvious that the number of forms that NPOs can take is excessive, albeit the differences between them are not entirely clear. There are no clear requirements for corporate governance of NPOs, which often leads to abuses through the shadow privatisations of NPOs by their management. There are serious issues with the transparency of NPOs in relation to society and even their members and volunteers. At the same time, the political support for NPOs by the government that has been announced over the past few years is not underpinned by appropriate legislative rules, first of all the tax legislation.

Within the NPOs themselves the attitude towards the existing legislation is quite inconsistent. However, the question is actually what can be improved and how this can be achieved. The changes that were introduced in 2006 that were already, as you know, mentioned by Azuan, provoked quite a negative reaction and not because of the fact that social activism or the activists were against order and transparency. Both the Moscow State University and the Higher School of Economics undertook research into the additional costs of NPOs relating to the increased complexity of registration and reporting. The overall result – billions of roubles in extra costs.

By the way, I will remind you that NPOs are tiny organisations for which any additional formal requirements result in noticeable harm to their main functions. And what result was achieved by this? It is well known that the overwhelming majority of reports are gathering dust and not being noticed by anyone. This is not surprising. In accordance with the findings of the research, in order to be able to realistically inspect the running of an organisation in accordance with the amended format one requires 10 times as many employees as there are working in the registration and inspection authorities. In other words, the mechanisms for control are obviously excessive in relation to the ability of the government to apply them.

The changes of 2006 require one to choose between two possibilities: either the obviously pointless task of filling out reports that nobody will check or the especially selective inspections with non-transparent criteria for selection. The latter is not only highly prone to corruption, but it also provides a reason for suspecting the political motivation of the inspectors. In practice, this does not actually happen at the moment – what does happen is the first. Why should we maintain this pointlessness?

And now to the most important issue: it is unacceptable that NPOs come up against higher administrative hurdles than commercial enterprises of a similar size and profile. It is incomprehensible why a whole row of positive decisions in relation to small businesses are not applicable to NPOs. A charity soup kitchen does not benefit from the same advantages as a commercial shop or cafй.

We have three main legislative proposals.

First: NPOs should, in undertaking their business, receive the same rights and advantages in government and municipal purchases as small businesses.

Secondly, the property rights of NPOs should be protected. Over the past 10 years a large number of regional social organisations were moved from the premises they had been renting in the centre of towns and cities to their outskirts, which had an obvious effect on their work – they should be treated in the same way as small businesses.

Thirdly, it is necessary for a less burdensome regime to be created for small-scale daily charitable activities. Today we are able to receive resources for many social initiatives from the population and not just from large property owners, on whom certain sections of the community continue to rely by virtue of habit. We propose that a working party be set up in the Presidential Administration, which would include the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Economics, as well as representatives of our Committee and the Social Chamber, with a limited life span, since there is already much work in progress on this point that just needs to be put into a system. Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: What would the working party be required to do – introduce changes into the legislation?

Ya. KUZMINOV: Yes, to introduce changes to the laws. We have, at present, approximately 12 legislative proposals.

D. MEDVEDEV: Understood, Yaroslav Ivanovich.

Yelena Anatolyevna Panfilova.

Ye. PANFILOVA: Thank you.

Mr. President! Colleagues! We have already spoken many times today about trust, about the problem of civil control, the problem of corruption. These issues will, of course, be discussed subsequently in more concrete terms by my colleagues. But I think that in relation to the problem of society’s participation in the control of activities of the authorities, we probably need to speak today about civil control separately and more specifically.

We heard words spoken about trust, about the fact that in modern-day Russia a real crisis, a deep crisis of trust has developed: no-one trusts anyone else. And, if it were not enough that society does not trust the authorities, the authorities do not trust society and they create special mechanisms for controlling NPOs.

These are the latest figures about mistrust among citizens, taken this morning from the website of the Pan-Russian Centre for Studies of Public Opinion: 46 per cent do not trust the law enforcement agencies, 40 per cent do not trust the courts, 32 per cent do not trust the mass media, 20 per cent do not trust social organisations. These are very large numbers. And on this crisis of trust a type of new Byzantium is being built, where completely new meanings are attribute to things and the things that are necessary in the real fight against corruption, in the real establishment of social control, such as transparency, accountability, decency, all of these things are being replaced with completely different concepts. The supremacy of law is being replaced by other concepts. The supremacy of law is being replaced by the supremacy of organisations and the existing free mass media are being replaced by propaganda. And, furthermore, citizens do not understand when we are referring to society and when we refer to civil control. Just to take the example of a law, a recent piece of legislation for fighting corruption: social control and civil control are mentioned many times – what they mean, how they will work, how it will be realised in practice, through which institutions this will happen - all of this is unclear to citizens.

Contacts within the administration, the abuse of these contacts is replacing political and economic competition more and more. As a result, people are determined to get to power not to improve the country at all or to make Russia strong; people are determined to get into power simply because they make it their objective to find a position that is close to the sources of unlawful enrichment.

Look at what happens here frequently. What are people competing hardest to get into? The government sector, and that is despite the fact that everyone knows that it is not the highest payer. And then all those people who get in just disappear nobody knows where. I will provide a completely horrible example from my own experience when I attended by way of experiment a course on the ethics of law-enforcement in one of the law-enforcement educational establishments. I was presenting and then these wonderful future, now acting law enforcement agents (this was a while ago), continued to listen to me, after which they said: “Yelena Anatolyevna, this is all wonderful, but don’t you understand that the first thing we need to do when we start serving is to get back those “bucks” that our parents paid in order to get is into here?”. These people are entering the system of law enforcement and then we need to find ways of controlling this. Their initial motivations are completely different.

But, you know, even this wasn’t the most terrifying thing. The most terrifying thing was that after the students left, three of them knocked on the door after a while and said: “We would genuinely like to know how to really introduce ethics into the service”. But they felt that they couldn’t ask this question in front of their fellow students, whose values were completely different. And so follows a drop in the level of ethics, trust and understanding, all of which creates widespread silence and alternative meanings, which fall into the well-prepared soil of that very system of corruption that we mention frequently. And one of the issues that is not discussed in his context is, of course, the corruption not only of law enforcers, of doctors, teachers, of the traffic police, who are discussed by everyone and who appear in our statistics. Our annual “Barometer of Russian Corruption” that we publish each year will be published this coming summer in July. All the figures will remain the same, it probably won’t be that interesting to read: those relating to the Traffic Police, law enforcement, the courts, none of these have changed over the past years, these statistics are 8-9 years old. But the thing that is left unmentioned is the level of corruption among officials. People have started talking about this again in their kitchens, there is no recognised discussion of this, but we understand that it exists. Otherwise, the corruption would not be systemic.

I believe that the words “transparency”, “accountability” and “decency” do not go far enough in the fight against this same corruption. Yes, absolutely everyone has learned to say the word “transparency” as it is pronounced with a foreign accent. I won’t talk about decency; it is very difficult to force someone to be decent. However, in relation to “accountability” (this is what we mean when we use the words “civil control”), I think we need to seriously sort this issue out and put it on a completely new set of tracks. You often say that things must be resolved within the confines of the law, but in a systematically corrupt situation the courts are not a complete haven from corruption themselves. It is extremely difficult for citizens to defend their rights by using only legal channels in a legislative system; in a legal system where this very corruption is present.

All my colleagues will confirm that citizens come to us, they come to us with complaints and with appeals when they have run out of legal means. At this point, our system of civil control starts to work and it uncovers the banal fact that, at the end of the day, the word control has a couple of meanings: control, meaning observation and control, meaning inspections and oversight. We are able to deal with the observation part, in other words, we observe, we collect, we deliver, we record. All of society’s problems are well known. Look, charities have discovered that Russia has no children’s hospices, they were the ones that discovered this. You would have thought that this discovery should have been made by the Ministry of Health, that terminally ill children are dying at home in agony and that there is nobody there to help. Environmental organisations are discovering breaches of environmental laws, in Utrishskiy national park and in other places. In general, various forms of picketing, protest marches, the monitoring of elections – these are all forms of civil control, as a form of observation, as a way of recording that, which is happening. Even if we established a Russian blogosphere to observe the tone of the main posts, then you would find that these are all the problems that exist at this moment in this country. Our society is, in other words, perfectly capable of observing. We have a serious problem when civil control becomes a form of instrumental supervision or instrumental inspection.

In actual fact, there are not that many instruments available. Of course, the ultimate tool of civil control are the elections, free elections, real political competition that does not allow the corrupt bureaucratic elite to remain. Of course, the absolute instrument of civil control is the free mass media; free not in the sense that they are merely free to say what they like, but in the sense that they are different, that they write about things differently and that strong civil institutions have actual leverage for real observation and do not just for highlighting problems. And the corrupt, ineffective bureaucracy will be very much opposed to this civil control, it will fight against it and it does fight against it in the same way that it fights against corruption. It really does fight against it and it will do everything to retain its access to sources of unlawful enrichment, regardless of who says what and who demands what.

Unfortunately, all of this will not happen overnight: we can’t expect that tomorrow, on the 16th of the month, all of what we are after will suddenly appear. And so, we need to act slowly, of course, in order to overhaul the current situation, at a time when a gamekeeper who stops officials who are hunting without a licence gets into trouble and not the hunting officials themselves, and we have to defend him. We can provide many such examples.

The fight against corruption is actually civil control on a wide scale. In reality, the fight against corruption is always a fight for human rights, since whenever there is corruption, there are breaches of human rights. Of course, we can solve these problems one after the other. We have been approached and we are trying to address this problem, but we are hitting a governmental brick wall. You can decide this through your local authorities, but how many years will it take if we decide to solve these problems one by one, needing to phone the governor or whoever else each time? We would restore faith in civil institutions, in the authorities in 10 – 15 years, but I am afraid that we do not have these 10 – 15 years, especially during the crisis.

We can create more effective internet portals where all of this is recorded. Our young people, my colleagues, have proposed ways in which to record all citizens’ appeals, as well as the responses. We can do this, but again, this will take time. We can introduce some sort of “civil control days”, during which ministers would be required to meet with representatives of civil societies, for example, from the working groups of our Committee. Once a month at a pre-determined time, in the way that we meet now and discuss what problems exist, they would let us know how these problems are being resolved. And why not?

But these are all half-measures. Of course, we need to strive to return to our lives the effective instruments of civil control that I talked about earlier, those that have somewhat faded, and in other ways have significantly faded, such as free, competitive elections and mass media. Without this, we will not shift the corrupt bureaucracy. Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

Let us listen to Vladimir Petrovich Lukin, who is not the member of the Council, but is the Commissioner on Human Rights in the Russian Federation.

You are welcome, Vladimir Petrovich.

V. LUKIN: Thank you.

First of all I must perform my legal duty and deliver you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, the annual report.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

V. LUKIN: It was prepared some time ago, but is still of high priority. This report covers many problems that have already been spoken about, and, of course, I share most of theses stated here by human right activists. I believe that the discussion is developing in a businesslike manner (which does not always happen), and I like it very much.

I should say that one interesting thing attracts attention in this report: starting from the second half of the previous year, the number of complaints have been growing – and has grown by approximately 10 percent. Besides, complaints are certainly connected, first of all, with the issues of labour relationships, housing problems, which is directly related to the crisis of course, still I concede that it is just possible that citizens learn about the institute of the Commissioner more, but nevertheless the crisis definitely influenced our work.

This report is the last one in the frame of the first five-year cycle of my work as a Commissioner on Human Rights, and that is why we can make some summarizing conclusions for the elapsed period. It will be very nice if a certain public dispute arises with respect to these conclusions, the report should be published in the “Russian Gazette” upon delivery, so I expect a discussion of the report either, apart from this very important meeting of the Council.

The principle of the report is very simple. At the beginning it contains those provisions of the Constitution that directly relate to civil rights and liberties. Then each article is commented on from the viewpoint of its filling with legislative and legal mass, as it is specified in laws. And then, which is very important, we particularize our opinion on the manner of its practical realization at the level of performance of constitutional and legal provisions.

Of course, at the moment I have no opportunity to consider main conceptual aspects of the report. I would only like to say that, of course, the situation with legal execution of basic provisions of our Constitution is by no means an ideal one, but, in general it is businesslike, and a lot of things have been done in the legal aspect. But the situation with practical realization of laws in the human right sphere could not be called favourable, at least with respect to a number of very important matters, and in this respect I agree with the opinion of our human right activists.

We have already discussed some specific aspects of this problem today, and there are some other aspects, but the subjects of complaints are rather permanent, and I will not state them now. I would restrict myself to the point that the main reason of it, in my opinion, arises from the fact that there are excessive sharpness and proneness to conflicts between the bodies of power and the human right conscious part of our society. I see the sources of such proneness to conflicts in dramatic misbalance between constitutional and legal mass and the state executive acuteness, practice. This misbalance is not reducing in general; on the contrary, in my opinion, attempts to adjust the legislation in line with everyday life according to common sense have become more frequent recently. These attempts have been successful with respect to a number of very important aspects, but with respect to a number of others they failed, and it is very good.

This is, practically, what I wanted to say; I just want to make three specific proposals that are procedural ones, but if they are somehow accepted, they will be able to assist in human rights activity in the country, since the work of state human right commissioners is closely connected, we cooperate with one another and support one another.

The first proposal is the following. I think that the development of legal aspects of [RF Human Rights] Commissioner activity should be completed. We have proposals with this respect. In my opinion, they are rather clearly and briefly stated in the letter that I would like to hand to you, Dmitry Anatolyevich.

These proposals are as follows. For instance, the process of creation of the institution of RF Human Rights Commissioner, both at regional and federal levels, have not been completed. When I commenced my work we had over 20 regional Commissioners. Now there are 49 of them. This is the majority. It is good, but it is bad that they are not everywhere. Citizens of our country deserve more or less unified attitude towards protection of their rights, that is why improvement of legislation is needed in this field.

Second proposal concerns the level of independence of regional commissioners on human rights. Public protection of human rights depends on such independence, public human right activists often rely on them. But sometimes it turns out that the situations described by Shchedrin and Gogol occur.

Recently a regional commissioner on human rights has been appointed in one of the regions, I won’t specify the region, but I have all the confirmation documents. Before this regional commissioner had been working for 30 years in state security bodies at positions of responsibility. God knows, I realize that this work is important and by no means can I say that this man is bad. In my opinion, this is a nice man; I have already seen him once. But still, in a forest there should be hares and wolves, and some people depend on others, and it is necessary to regulate it somehow.

More than once I have offered my respected neighbour to turn to legal adjustment of this situation. He is not against it in principle, but he reproaches me that I want to reconstruct the vertical of power in the sphere under my responsibility. God knows, I have no Napoleonic ideas, but you see: a situation occurs when a federal commissioner is unable to tell the regional governor that there is still understanding, that public human right activists should say their word, that somebody should be a respectful person who deals with this matter. It is necessary to legalize somehow. I think I am right. And I would like us to work more on this. There are many other legislative aspects; I have not time to consider them any more.

My second proposal – actually it is not mine, it is yours, Dmitry Anatolyevich. When we first met with you already being in your present position, the agreement was achieved to meet periodically, at least once a quarter, and discuss the most acute aspects of human right matters on an absolutely practical basis, without mass-media, and so on. We have not managed to do it still. I clearly realize that your schedule is just one of the tightest in the world. And still I think that even the most important questions, questions of the crisis, questions concerning the sums that some tycoon must pay to somebody else, all these questions are very important at the time of the crisis, I am serious, there is no irony in my words. But the state, the pulse of the human right activity in the country are not less important. I would like to ask you to take this circumstance into consideration and give appropriate practical recommendations to your Administration.

My third specific procedural proposal is the following: it may be reasonable to think over the question of the inclusion of the Commissioner [on Human Rights of the Russian Federation], in this or that form, into the Security Council, for instance, either as a member, or as a permanent guest. In this case the aspect of human rights will be brought up at consideration of the most important state affairs, and it will be taken into account at consideration of these affairs; otherwise the law-enforcement arguments and law-enforcement environment strongly oppresses the arguments and environment of human rights in practical work, not from time to time, but permanently. Maybe we can think of something better, but in my opinion it is such a practical measure.

As for the report, it would be very good if the President ordered to distribute the report which I have submitted to you to the governors – we could do it ourselves – and the governors received the appropriate instruction to arrange wide public discussions of this report, especially with respect to the aspects directly related to their regions.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Colleagues, I will not name anybody else. Those who want to speak, please, I am ready to give the floor.

T. MORSHCHAKOVA: If you allow me, Mr. President.

D. MEDVEDEV: You are welcome, Tamara Georgievna.

T. MORSHCHAKOVA: Thank you. I heartily thank you and my colleagues for the one more opportunity to speak on the problem of courts, judicial system, and court reform. These problems were included in the public discourse long ago, but unfortunately, in my opinion and opinion of the expert community, so far they have not been solved appropriately both at the level of legislative practices and at the level of law-enforcement practices.

I shall take the liberty to bring up, as briefly as it was done by my colleagues, some selective problems, without providing a full conception of reforms of judicial activity and judicial system, that are, surely, being developed by the Council either.

What – and this is, in my opinion, extra important –I think is necessary to draw attention to? The issue number one looks absolutely relevant and practical enough; it has been submitted to you in projects and in an explanatory note to that draft of the law that is supported by the Council, our Council, in connection with the development of the institution of jury in judicial procedures. This institution should not be understood as having narrow application, because it nicely fits the problem of assistance in the development of the civil society in the country. This institution really makes citizens of people. And the experience – the experience of jurors, the experience of public organizations of jurors, that have already appeared – proves this process.

Due to the fact that the legal reduction of the jury powers has occurred, we are trying to offer you the project; we strongly rely on your support of this project that would enable to widen people’s participation in performance of justice without any incurring any financial expenses by the state. This institution provides for several protection levels. If we even turn to what you have already spoken, it, of course, provides for protection against unqualified investigation and unqualified prosecution. This institution certainly protects independence of the court, that is actually far from required level in our country, and finally, this institution provides participation of citizens in performance of justice that is so insignificant at present; it practically close to a zero level.

I would like these proposals to be considered and I think that the Council would be ready to participate, inter alia, in working groups that are created in connection with development of legislation on improvement of judicial power and judicial system that are acting now. This is idea number one, and it is very important for us, as my colleagues have spoken with respect to other questions, to see a positive appeal from such level as the level of the President’s power; then it will be easier to move forward in the legislative assembly.

The second question that is impossible to be omitted is connected with reduction of a certain, if you prefer, bureaucratic impact, bureaucratic methods of the very judicial system organization. Various verticals inside the judicial system itself, not even outside, have already been spoken about here. Very particular methods of bureaucratic governance have formed, they practically deprive courts and the judicial power inside its system of its sovereignty, and this situation reaches such scale that, as various authors have written in a number of publications, it becomes a problem of national security.

Citizens are unable to gain protection in courts not because they do not have legally established rights for it, but because courts are aimed at other things. The point is that at present such procedures of judicial manpower formation and judge status withdrawal prevail in judicial sphere that practically bring to naught constitutional principles of judge status such as, first of all of course, independence and irremovability of a judge. We spoke at the 7th All-Russia Meeting of Judges about rather a strange method of appointment of a judge for the first three years and waiting within all three years for a moment when a judge could be removed if he or she has suddenly become unsuitable. An unsuitable judge surely should be removed without waiting for expiration of these three years. But professional formation of judge manpower is still not provided for; it is arranged in accordance with a bureaucratic principle.

Due to the abovementioned I would like to draw your attention to the forces which formation of judge manpower depends on. Appointment of all judges for their positions (and these are federal judges) is the constitutional power of the President. The procedure that now exists in order to provide for execution by the President of this constitutional power essentially restricts this power. Because after the qualification exam of the judge all remaining choice in favour or against the candidate is absolutely closed: it is unclear how the choice is performed, grounds of the choice and the proposal of a judge to the President are not announced, the entire process of the nomination discussion upon the qualification panel makes its recommendation is unclear; it is only clear that no nomination can come to the President’s Administration without the Supreme Court Chairman’s approval – not only appropriate court nominating the candidate, but also the opinion of the Supreme Court is requested. Evidently, these procedures demand more transparency.

Besides, serious damage to the principle of irremovability of judges is being caused by the system of dismissal of judges that has been tested, is practiced every day and is based on absolutely unclear grounds of dismissal and on insufficiently guaranteed mechanisms.

From this viewpoint it would be very desirable to support the idea of creation of a special disciplinary body that would consist of judges not engaged in the general judicial system, because those judges who work in the judicial system are still dependent on chairmen of appropriate courts.

I will very briefly give two examples of the odium of powers of the court chairman, let alone distribution of cases or upgrading of qualification classes for judges. Chairmen of courts can, for instance, establish the amount of increment for judges that they are entitled for under the law for special conditions, complexity and intensiveness of judge activity. It turns out however that such increment just depends on the direct superior.

A judge, a chairman of the court appeals to the qualification panel of judges (and this is my second example) with the offer not to keep a judge of a military court at military service but to make a decision by means of voting just because a judge, whose term of military service has exceeded may not any longer be a member of a military court. I think this problem must be solved somehow.

Here is my last thesis I would like to bring up. This issue, tropologically, may be denoted as criminal law methods of economy management. It has already been discussed here a little, but I want us all to evaluate the danger of this situation from the viewpoint of the judicial system. The point is that criminal prosecution that is initiated, deliberately commenced with the sole aim of a certain redistribution of legally or illegally acquired property, this criminal law prosecution may absolutely ignore legal judicial acts of highest judicial bodies of other kinds of jurisdiction as compared with criminal jurisdiction. An ordinary local investigator does not recognize acts of highest judicial bodies, such as the High Arbitration Court, which have confirmed the legal nature of ownership. They are not even negated in any procedures, which, in course of a criminal prosecution, ultimately is just against constitutional principles, such as presumption of innocence (because any doubt in evidences of prosecution must be denied) and such principles as legitimate composition of court for each case.

Legal force of judicial acts of such kind is actually absolutely undermined by criminal law methods, and civil law relationships, where civil law regulation is replaced by a specific civil-criminal law, are criminalized. Explanations of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on criminal law issues play essential negative role, since they ultimately enable to represent any civil law transaction as a criminal injury.

Of course, these are not all the questions, I would like to say that representatives of the Council are ready to participate in any working group, subcommittee, working body, that would be engaged in presentation of such issues at the legislative level and elimination thereof by legal means from our legislative environment, which, from my viewpoint, is a direct means of overcoming of what we call legal nihilism.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

You are welcome, Ida Nikolaevna.

I. KUKLINA: Dmitry Anatolyevich!

I will start from a statement that sounds unconventionally for our organization that has been working in the military sphere for 20 years already. We address you with the appeal by no means to stop the military reform, and alter its strategic purpose; its announced aims must be preserved, and the reform must be accomplished.

Actually, the very word “reform” compromised itself long ago, because there were a lot of them, and a lot of them were announced (some ministers even managed to announce a military reform more than once), and this word has, of course, been corrupted. But nevertheless we are now considering what is being done with respect to the Armed Forces as a reform and ask to accomplish it; otherwise we will have no army at all. For two decades it has turned into rotten remains of the Soviet Army.

Of course, we understand that this problem is very difficult. Generally speaking, the tangle of problems of this large military corporation, absolutely uncontrolled and ill-managed comprises millions of problems. I would like to speak on many of them, including, for instance, on the problem of cancellation of some draft deferments, the problem of restoration of some draft deferments, the problem of young people’s health protection, that is the health of Armed Forces draftees, or, for instance, on the problem of tracing of missing people. There are many problems. But I will not speak on these problems now because we will just submit you our letters and detailed elaborations, and now I want to mention the problems that are “alive” and that demand solving as soon as possible. All these problems relate to South Ossetia, the situation there and the presence of the Russian troops there.

The sole legal basis, that we can consider and that determine the legal status of the Russian troops in South Ossetia, is represented by your edicts that state that our troops execute the peacekeeping function there. The problem is that our legislation does not provide for participation of conscripts in any peacekeeping operations. In order to do it, certain provisions of law, that are not applied to soldiers, should be observed. That is why the presence of our soldiers there is substantially illegal; it is against the Russian legislation.

Furthermore, the problem of legal status of the Russian troops relates not only to soldiers, conscripts, but also to all military men which stay there. We greeted the conclusion of the Agreement with South Ossetia on the legal status of border troops for mutual policing of the border. Similar agreements should be concluded, at least of temporary nature (we understand the complexity of this problem, but let it be at least of temporary nature), with respect to all other Russian troops in South Ossetia, because at present the entire jurisdiction, in general, the entire judicial personality of any serviceman is determined by a sole thing – the order of its direct commander. There have already been unpleasant incidents. And I don’t want, nobody wants any emergency situations to repeat. But they occur there and will occur. Troops under such conditions will inevitably decay; emergency situations will inevitably occur, including those that arise from contacts with local population. So, it is necessary to restore the legal immunity of a Russian citizen in military uniform, it is necessary to divide somehow the jurisdiction between Russia and South Ossetia, and it is necessary to preserve complete judicial personality of military men who stay in South Ossetia. This problem is very urgent; otherwise there will be unpleasant situations.

I repeat once more: the problem is complicated. Probably a permanent agreement is impossible to be achieved at present. Probably, I admit it. Some temporary agreements should be achieved, because abuse of power from the part of a commander, the very possibility of such abuse of power, absolute power and absence of control – all these things sooner or later will explode as some boil.

And undoubtedly all conscripts must be withdrawn from South Ossetia.

And finally, the third problem connected with South Ossetia either. For military men it is very important, and we understand them actually. This is the problem of gaining the status of veteran of military operations. I have a leaflet that I have passed to Ella Alexandrovna; we distribute this leaflet where possible; it is about the search for a lieutenant colonel, he is a pilot shoot down at Tskhinvali. Who is he? Isn’t he a veteran of military operations? Do we admit that people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who, for instance, judging by personal experience, were present in, let’s say, Eritrea, - they are the veterans of military operations, and pilot Koventsov, whether he is alive (we hope he is) or perished, - isn’t he a veteran of military operations? And it relates to a great number of people. At present there is a total variety of opinions with this respect. The list of periods of military actions that entitle to gaining the veteran status does not contain South Ossetia and Georgia, but there are people, and people fought, and people sacrificed their lives, and people performed their duties, and still they are not veterans. It is just unfair. It is necessary to be improved as soon as possible.

Thank you for attention.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you. Please, who would like to proceed?

You are welcome, Lyudmila Mikhailovna.

L. ALEKSEYEVA: The subject of my speech is the following: “Peaceful meeting: meetings and demonstrations, marches and picketing”, that is the right guaranteed to citizens by Article 31 of the Constitution.

Since the access to main mass-media is limited for ordinary citizens, street actions, both under political mottoes and with respect to purely everyday situations, acquire a special significance. For most citizens this is the sole possibility to communicate their opinion on issues that they worry about to the knowledge of authorities. Our law on the freedom of meetings is quite democratic, but the gap between this law and the practice of application thereof is evident. This law is violated in all regions in the same manner. It makes us think that actions of representatives of power are determined by regulations that are unknown to us and that practically abolish our constitutional right for freedom of meetings.

Thus, according to law, citizens must only notify local authorities of the intended action. The obligation of authorities is to assist them in execution of their right. Authorities are not entitled to ban public events, but may only suggest changing the place and time of holding thereof. Besides, such change shall be substantiated and agreed upon with organizers of the action. That means that the right for freedom of meetings shall prevail, and restrictions shall not deprive this right of the very essence thereof.

Making a proposal on change of the place and time as an ultimatum, as it is usually made, and refusing to discuss alternative variants with organizers, the authorities depreciate the very process of agreement that implies equal participation of the parties. Sending speakers to desolate places authorities deprive them of possibility to communicate their opinion to a target audience, thus making the expression of their opinion senseless. Restricting the number of participants of public events, authorities usually substantiate this decision by exceeding of established maximum occupancy rates of the given territory. But the rates shall be unified for everybody, still they increase by dozens of times when the same place is used by United Russia or “Ours” movement.

Use of OMON and application of physical force against citizens are only accepted when there is a real danger of a peaceful meeting turning into mass disorders. To the credit of our co-citizens, I can say that such situations occur extremely rarely, but rude and even cruel interference of OMON is not rare at all. Prosecution of participants of peaceful protest actions, dismissal from work, administrative arrests on the ground of farfetched reasons, withdrawal of car licenses, and many other actions are not rare either.

Mr. President, it is your clarification that participants of peaceful action are not criminals, who should be made harmless, but citizens acting in the frame of the Constitution, which representatives of power bodies of various levels need. Evidently, those regulations that determine the actions of our authorities towards the freedom of meetings need reviewing. The freedom of meetings is the most important form of feedback between the power and the society; peaceful protest actions are a natural form of this feedback. However authorities percept any protest actions as violation of their soundness and thus believe that such events reveal the failure of their subordinates to control the situation in the territory of their responsibility. This misbelieve is especially dangerous now, during the crisis, when citizens have reasons for discontent. Impossibility of this discontent expression by legal means will strengthen the tenseness and may actually become a threat for stability. Its preserving will be provided not by forceful suppression of protests, but by dialogues on issues that alarm citizens and by satisfaction of their lawful demands.

I would like to draw your attention, Mr. President, to the situation in Kaliningrad. Last week the 25th mass picket took place there with the same protest against closing of the best hospital in the city, the hospital that all inhabitants connected with the sea are registered in, and such people are very numerous, both in the city and in the region. The hospital is situated in the centre of the city, and evidently somebody liked this land and these buildings. 25 weeks the pickets are being held, but so far there has been no reaction from the part of the governor and his background. Such deafness to citizens’ demands is a real danger for stability.

I would like to emphasize the situation with freedom of meetings in Moscow. It is in many respects a symbol for the whole country. The governance of Moscow rejects any dialogue with organizers of an action and in the event of any disagreement sends militia to oppose citizens. One of explanations is that meetings and marches create discomfort for inhabitants of central districts. In this connection we have repeatedly offered to establish a Moscow “Hyde Park” – a certain place for holding all public events. But the authorities offer us Shevchenko embankment where garages are situated and absolutely nobody will see either a march, or a demonstration. In London, Mr. President, Hyde Park is situated in the very centre of the city, opposite the royal residence. In Moscow a natural Hyde Park is Red Square, a traditional place of holding of mass events. Your decision is required in this respect, Mr. President. The law states that the procedure of holding of mass events in Red Square shall be determined by the President, but this procedure has not been established yet. The positive decision of this question by your edict would demonstrate respect to rights and freedoms of citizens.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you, Lyudmila Mikhailovna.

Please, who would like to proceed?

G. DZHIBLADZE: Dmitry Anatolyevich! Colleagues! I will continue the discussion of the situation with non-governmental organizations, but from the viewpoint of human rights, in particular, realization of the right for freedom of association.

The right for association is one of fundamental human rights recorded in international law and in the Russian Constitution. Together with the freedom of expression and the freedom of meetings that Lyudmila Mikhailovna have just spoken about, they constitute a triad of so called vital rights and freedoms in the absence of which a democratic legal state is unable to function. If recently somebody could erroneously, I suppose, believe that under conditions of plentiful economic growth and political stability resulting from power centralization and enhancement of the role of the state, the state may do without independent civil society, then today, under the conditions of the crisis, it has become evident: without providing the possibility for self-organization of citizens, development of horizontal connections and dialogue in the society, public control over bodies of power, our country will not emerge from the crisis being more sound, modern, democratic, based on the principle of supremacy of law. In order to guarantee the right for association, legislation and the state policy should be based on provision of independence of civil institutions and creation of favourable environment for their development. The dialogue with civil organizations on the basis of equality, respect, recognition of their independence, tolerance towards dissident thinking and critical view at the situation typical of NGOs – all these aspects are the crucial condition of efficient state policy with respect to NGOs.

Unfortunately, changes in the state policy and legislation on NGOs that took place in 2005-2006, turned relationships of the state and civil institutions in the opposite direction and have provided rather adverse impact on the situation with NGOs and freedom of associations for the last three years. I will remind that adoption of these amendments was substantiated by the fact that it is necessary to harmonize regulation of NGO activity and prevent threats to the state that, according to common belief, emerge when NGOs are manipulated by foes from abroad, are involved in unacceptable political activity and are engaged in extremism and other criminal activities.

Now, three years later – literally the other day will be three year upon the moment when these amendments came into force – we may definitely state: not only have they essentially worsened the situation with the institutions of civil society, but also have not reached their intended goals. Ten thousand organizations have undergone many-day paralyzing inspections and received numerous warnings with threats of banning thereof, wasted a huge amount of time, paper and nerves on communication with inspectors and on practically useless reporting – instead of dealing in their useful for society affairs. Thousands of new groups were unable to register, and thousands more were closed down under the initiative of the registration service. Besides, application of this legislation has not resulted in revelation of any facts of NGO activity representing menace for the national security or any unlawful actions of more or less serious scale from the part of NGOs in Russia, besides maybe inaccuracy in filing in new reporting forms or careless maintenance of current documentation. The very idea of threats to territorial integrity, sovereignty, national identity from the part of NGOs turned out to be insolvent. Real terrorists and extremists, Mr. President, do not use this law and do not register NOGs.

As for the so called political activity, all of us – and the state itself – have realized that elaboration and promotion of amendments to legislation on the state policy and institutions is the mission and integral right of civil institutions.

What do we do in this Council? What do we discuss today? Of course, issues of policy, as in other similar expert consultant bodies. Nevertheless, the signal that NGOs represent a menace to the state has been sent out. Unfortunately, unfounded accusation of NGOs by representatives of the state has become a standard practice recently. Practically every month high rank officials at the level of the Government, heads of regions, heads and governmental agencies announce that NGOs support terrorists and separatists, receive money from organized criminals, feed our youth with drugs, carry spy stones, etc. Particular facts practically never are mentioned and organizations are not named.

All this have led to creation of an enemy image for NGOs, especially for those which express critical views at various problems and deal in the most complicated, sensitive questions: opposing corruption, human rights, environmental problems, public control over law enforcement. Such turn was perceived by a substantial part of public organizations as attack at the civil society.

As a result the inspectors decided that their main task is the revelation of threats, search for violations committed by NGOs and punishment for such violations. The presumption of guilt of NGOs has occurred, and the application of law has acquired not corrective and developing nature, but punitive and repressive one. While serious violations of laws, as a rule, were not revealed, in practice control was often aimed at searching, and frequently on inventions of violations and problems in NGO activity, mainly with respect to document flow and performance of provisions of their own articles of association. Harmonization was not achieved either; on the contrary, it led to unpredictability, uncertainty, abuse of power and additional amount of papers. We know that internationally accepted standards provide for interference of the state and restriction of rights only in the events when such measures are provided by law, are necessary in a democratic society, have lawful purpose in the frame of state security or public order, for the purpose of preventing riots and crimes or are taken for protection of health and morality, rights and freedoms of other persons. Our law is not consistent with these requirements.

With amendment of the law NGOs acquired essential problems at all stages of interaction with regulatory bodies: from registration to closing down of the NGO. As I have already mentioned, according to experts’ opinion, amendments of 2006 are controversial and lengthy, they have installed new administrative barriers for NGOs, created conditions for discretionary and optional application, vested excessive powers to controllers for interference into activity of NGOs, contain provisions leading to corruption and are perceived as politically motivated.

Today, Mr. President, the high-priority problem, in our opinion (this is a consolidated position of the Council), is expedient revocation of restrictive and repressive amendments to legislation on NGOs adopted in 2006. We think it symbolically crucial and important for these amendments to be introduced directly by you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, before the spring session of the Duma. From our part, we have, without waiting for establishing of a working group and development of new legislation, developed these amendments and are prepared to submit them to you in the nearest future.

The next step upon revocation of these amendments must be development and adoption of new advanced legislation with this respect, consistent with our Constitution and generally accepted international legal norms and standards and aimed at creation of favourable conditions for the civil society development and provision for efficient guarantees of realization of free associations.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

A. SIMONOV: From the viewpoint of public organizations, the climate of impunity for crimes against civil society leaders, journalists, civil activists, advocates has appeared in today’s Russia. The impunity is a result of both inactivity and direct activity of law enforcement bodies, the two previous speakers have already partially mentioned it.

For instance, several dozens of journalists were arrested and beaten when they were working on coverage of protest meetings and the opposition march for the last two years. Activity here is as follows: OMON people are gathered in the amount that is three-four times as many as the number of announced participants, and they are instructed that they are to struggle with enemies of state. When they abuse the power, the inactivity comes on stage, not only are lawbreakers avoid the trial, but initiating of criminal proceedings against these so called law enforcers is hindered by all possible means. A dozen and a half journalists beaten at coverage of protest action in Vladivostok in December suffer the impact of this mechanism just now, just at this very time.

On the other hand, murders of Kholodov, Politkovskaya, Listyev, Shchekochikhin, Kirsanov in Kurgan, Markevich in Ekaterinburg: neither killers, nor customers have been revealed in neither of the case. And every advance, even an insignificant one, along this way passes through resistance of power bodies, sophisticated intersection of state ambitions and private interests.

How was investigation, for instance, of the most well-known cases of murder of journalists proceeded? Let’s take Togliatti, Ivanov and Sidorov, two murdered editors of the same newspaper. How does this mechanism work? First, by no means recognize that the motive of the murder was journalistic activity. Second, both times they seize the first random person a week after the murder, then the Deputy General Prosecutor Kolesnikov (now he is the former General Prosecutor) appears and widely announces that the guilty persons have been found and they will be put to trial. In one case two of three arrested people were released due to absence of prove, the third person died in prison, the trial did not take place. In the second case a welder was arrested, he had been beaten until he admitted his guilt, but at the trial the conviction failed, he was released due to non-complicity to the crime. Both cases are “visyaki” (cold cases), the investigation has been suspended, access to materials of both cases has been denied, killers are free and may commit further crimes.

Analyzing statistics of murders of journalists we have found out that at average these murders are duly investigated eight times as rare as murders and other serious crimes committed with respect to ordinary citizens. A new trend has appeared lately, its victims are heads and activists of civil organizations, trade union activists in Togliatti, Kolpin, Saint Petersburg, members of the “Solidarnost” movement; Stanislav Yakovlev – two days ago his teeth were knocked out and nose was broken; a week earlier Lev Ponomarev – the head of movement for human rights; Elena Vasilyeva – head of organization “Forgotten regiment”; editor of “Khimkinskaya Pravda” Mikhail Beketov was beaten and defaced; direct threats were made towards Svetlana Alekseevna Gannushkina, who is present here, and Galina Kozhevnikova; the murder of barrister Markelov and journalist Baburova.

Do you know, that in the “Novaya Gazeta”, whose editor you met the day before tomorrow, a new rule has been introduced: journalists must meet people appealing to the newspaper under the control of the security service only? But what should they do if five journalists of this newspaper have been killed? What should we do if investigation on the case of Ponomarev’s murder only commenced when we announced the press-conference on the issue of inactivity of law enforcement bodies? By the way, there were as many as four TV cameras at that press-conference, three of them were foreign ones. What shall we do, if we have been appealing to you and your predecessor for more than one year asking for mercy for those people who, in our opinion, being absolutely innocent were sentenced to 14 and 12 year of camps? I am speaking about Sutyagin and Danilov. We have not been given a single answer to our letters. But besides, in both cases there were striking violations of justice, illiterate expert opinions and common sense trample close to mockery. Will anybody read these letters up to the end?

Taking the opportunity, I appeal directly to you today and now. It is necessary to take measures for change of the climate in country where dissidence and civil activity are placed by law enforcement bodies on the same shelf with crime against the state. The danger of violence towards civil activists, journalists and lawyers accompany them daily.

What do we ask you about? While speaking on TV, please, find an opportunity to assess those cases from political and moral viewpoint for people to know: you think the same way we do. Give instructions to heads of law enforcement bodies to take under personal responsible control each of enlisted cases or similar ones, not to neglect the duty of informing the society on the measures taken. Demand from them to react efficiently to threats made. Frankly speaking, we are sick and tired to listen to such words: well, they haven’t killed yet, thanks God, when they kill, come to us, then we will speak to you. We have a proposal: is it possible to adopt amendments to appropriate laws, making civil activists, journalists and lawyers equal to state servants, law enforcers and judges? There are also other proposals. All these questions are specified in our letter, Ella Alexandrovna will pass it to you. Thank you for your attention.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

You are welcome.

I. YASINA: Dmitry Anatolyevich, thank you very much for hearing us for so long. I will try to speak briefly and will speak impromptu.

In her introductory speech Ella Alexandrovna said that probably the most important demand of the society is its humanization. The country inherited terrible heritage. We inherited it as citizens, and you inherited it especially as the President. The whole 20th century is the denial of the value of human life, the whole 20th century is, to put it mildly, the violation of human rights. And now we, children and grandchildren of those who lived in this 20th century must try to change this situation somehow, since we are already in the 21st century. And the great responsibility is imposed upon you personally as the President and on the entire top level, the elite, call it as you wish. Because Russia is a country where power, if not sacred, but extremely respected, let’s say worshiped by some people. And the example it represents is always an example for emulation. So far examples provided by the power have not been the best ones.

The speakers here brought up questions of corruption, this and that. Colleagues, I think that the roots of all these problems you have been spoken about so nicely and so long, are mostly in the level of neglecting of the value of human life and in the attitude towards human dignity. Moreover, man has forgotten that he has personal dignity.

Do you understand that examples of mercy, examples of human attitude must first of all be shown at the upper level, by you, your wives, and your children. I am speaking about it absolutely seriously. I remember examples from European history of the late 19th – early 20th century. At large, we understand that we are living through this very period. But, at large, in our development we passed all these centuries in some other way. Is that true? And great responsibility rests upon you, and all these ministers, and these deputies of the State Duma, they must demonstrate that they all are ready to do it. Do you understand, not some sole town madman. In our country a person who performs philanthropy is a fanatic, an absolutely abnormal person. But everybody must do it, especially now, during the crisis. We have spoken a lot about involvement of human potential. My God, how much can we do by just readjusting the button of a TV set, by just watching not about murders and cutlets of a granddaughter, as my own daughter jokes: again they tell us about cutlets of a granddaughter, but about other things. People are actually interested in it either.

I deal in charity and enlightenment, and I am not at all desperate with this respect. I know how people react at it. Moreover, people whom I gather for charity concerts thank me. They thank me for my having drawn them out of home and making them give three thousand roubles each in favour of Tarusa district hospital.

And one more moment, a very important one. I am a wheel-chair handicapped person, that is why I was unable to stand up when you greeted me. I won’t describe in colour how difficult my life is in our country. But this situation is not desperate either. Not long ago I met a woman, the head of the Social Protection Department of the District of Columbia, that is the capital of the United States; she is 61, and she told me that when she was five her mother was going to enroll her to school, but the girl was not accepted to school because the notion of inclusive education, that is joint education did not exist at that time. There were no ramps, there was nothing at all. It was in 1950-s in the United States of America. And now this girl is 61 and she has access to everything. Why I am speaking about it: changes that occur within a single human life are very dramatic, and they have done it all themselves, her mother, mothers of similar children who were not accepted to school. Do you understand, civil activity is extremely important. In our county mothers of disabled children think they just survive. They survive, that is true, but our duty, the duty of civil organizations is to explain them that without their activity nobody will be disturbed and nobody will come to help. Why disabled people are not provided with help? I am sure, it happens because they are not in the streets, because nobody knows about them. I am in the street, and, you know, everybody helps me, people offer me their help, their hands, suggest carrying the wheel-chair, and the wheel-chair requires carrying permanently, because there is not a single ramp. But I am still positive, it all could be solved. Moreover, it is not even too expensive, legislative amendments are just required. Our legislation on disabled people is wonderful, it provides for everything, except two points: responsibility for non-performance and deadlines, that is why it is just good will, nothing more.

Humanization of society is needed everywhere, examples are needed, positive examples, and there are plenty of them. We need films about people who have overcome, we need stories of success. You know, our population is largely zombied. I will confess, I am ready to use this element of zombiing for positive purposes, but it is necessary to become kinder, to give a helping hand to those who need it. Once more about you role, the role of your family, your friends, classmates of your son: to study in the same class with Ilya Medvedev should be not just prestigious and cool, but it should impose certain obligations. Do you understand, these children should go to hospices to read books or poems to dying people, and it is done, you know? Eleanor Roosevelt, being a little girl, went to schools for immigrants in Brookline to teach them English, her parents sent her there. And then, when her husband, a wheel-chair handicapped person became the President, she used to say that “I am the legs of my husband”, and she went down to mines and climbed at all production plants instead of him.

And the last thing I want to say. It directly concerns the humanization of the society. The stories of Natasha Morar’ and Ilya Barabanov are very close to me personally, because for me they are children, they are the same age as my daughter. They are separated. I am not speaking about judicial rules of the Convention of family reunification, etc. But these children have not even been explained why they are not able to be together. According to our information that we have got from journalists from Moldavia and from Natasha’s family, she is at home now. She was called to the General Prosecutor’s Office, where she was interrogated. No measures were taken to her, that is neither recognizance not to leave, nor taking in custody, nothing was applied to her. She is absolutely innocent, even in the opinion of the Moldavian authorities. But nevertheless the feeling that our country has started to spoil life of this girl and her husband disturbs me. We will watch this case very attentively, I mean the members of the Council, we have agreed upon it, we will watch this story because we want to be merciful as a country, we want to notice everyday people’s problems, both tiny and large.

And the last one. Mr. President, I want to be proud of my country very much, and I want to be proud of my President very much. I still have time for it left. I am ready to do everything I can, and so are all my colleagues. You know that we are able to do it while we are alive. Let us start. Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you very much.

Please, who would like to proceed?

S. SOROKINA: Once more, good afternoon. I have prepared a whole speech, but now I will reduce the fable in the process, because we have been sitting here long ago and because this subject – children – is very familiar to you, there is no need to explain much and there is no need to persuade that it is important either. Aleksey Ivanovich and I have prepared several letters concerning this problem, and Ella Alexandrovna has probably put them to you.

I only want to say, and especially to say it to you, because when the system does not work a great desire arises to appeal to the “tsar-father” for him to have a look at it. While I was going here to the meeting, various public activists, representatives of public organizations for children were constantly phoning me asking to communicate something to you, to inform you, and so on.

What do I want to say? First of all, of course I want to touch the notorious Law on Custody and Guardianship, because the whole last year and the last but one year the Ministry of Education, representatives of public organizations and we were struggling for some other version of it, but, unfortunately, we lost this battle. So far I cannot understand the deputies’ position: something like “I will cut off my ear to disturb Mother”. I don’t understand why the notion “patronage” has been eliminated from the Law on Custody and Guardianship. I want to draw your attention to this fact because this is patronage, social patronage, patronage breeding that enables to send orphans over seven and disabled children to substituting families; people do not take such children under the conditions of any other kind of family arrangement. So, patronage enables to do it, because this is the joint responsibility of the state and a new family. But this notion has been eliminated.

We kindly ask you to initiate reviewing of amendments to this Law once more. These amendments are available, they have been prepared by the Ministry of Education. Please, pay attention, the experience is good.

But what else do I want to draw your attention to? I was shocked to read in one the surveys, that was given to me by Tatyana Mikhailovna Maleva, that pensioner is not the poorest part of the population as we usually think. The poorest people in our country are families with two or more children. With respect to the depth and, so to say, the scale of poverty nothing could be compared with large families, and it is terrible. I think that the crisis will not improve the situation, but rather make it worse.

That is why I would like to appeal, first of all, with the following request: it is necessary to initiate the increase of allowances for children, I think, making them several times as much as they are now, because otherwise it will improve the situation by no means. And we see a very alarming trend of children’s population reduction.

One more alarming trend concerns orphan children. The number of children distributed to substituting families is reducing. And again the crisis will play not a favourable role. That is why we should think what to do with it. Maybe we need a national program of social orphanage overcoming and apply the advanced experience. Do you know what is important here? I think it is very important to pull apart this exclusively governmental chain of responsibility. Because in our country only state officials, state bodies of custody deal in these matters, they do not let anybody close to it, institutions are rather barred, especially if we take institutions for orphans and disabled people, they are just terrible. So, it is necessary to allow participation of experts, participation of public organizations. Because if only officials handle these matters, we will never get out of this precipice.

Well, and in the end I would like to say the following. Please, pay attention to the fact that it is necessary to assist in creation of centres for foster parents and custodians, as well as in professional support of families. And I think that it is necessary to promote the idea of partnership, rather than opposition of the state and public non-commercial organizations, and we need dynamic social advertising that is practically absent at our central TV channels.

By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that inside our State Duma a new bill is maturating, that is able to reduce the situation to the absurdity. It supposes to charge money for social advertising as for commercial advertising. If this law is adopted, we will lose social advertising at all.

And the last thing I want to speak about. You know, I am among those 95 thousand people who have signed the appeal to you with respect to Svetlana Bakhmina. Though I don’t like collective letters, I have done it. And I want to remind you about Svetlana Bakhmina and say that, in my opinion, the practice of probation should be applied wider and more actively towards women who have underage children, or pregnant, or those who deliver a child during imprisonment. I think that this practice of probation for women whose wrongdoings are not connected with crimes against individuals, or, say, with drugs or with some other articles of the Crime Code, of course each time it should be considered individually, but still this practice should be applied more actively. I want very much to hope, just like Irina, that we do not live in the least merciful country. I want it very much.

Thank you.

S. YAMSHCHIKOV: Dmitry Anatolyevich! I understand that it is hard to be listening for such a long time, but I ask for literally several minutes for our problems.

The culture in our country has always existed on the remnant principle, so to say. For the last 20 years, unfortunately, many troubled situations occurred in the sphere of monuments protection, much more than I would want. But the most dreadful trouble today is that we have practically lost one of our most important cities: it is a museum city, I mean Pskov. Besides, I must tell you that for the last four years all mass-media, starting from the VGTRK and up to newspapers, “Izvestia” and others, have been constantly speaking about this alarming situation. And they were speaking sharply that nowadays Pskov is in a condition (concerning monuments and nature) that is much more appalling than in July 1944, when the last Nazi soldier had left the city. It is absolutely true.

The town is built over with town houses beside the monuments – they are more numerous that in Rublevka. Meanwhile all monuments have decayed. A multi-star hotel of the spa type is being constructed 20 meters aside from the exceptional monument of the 15th century that has been registered in all UNESCO lists. The temple is decaying. People say: “They will be ashamed and they will donate money for restoration of the church”. They will demolish it and built a casino there – this is more profitable.

Two governors (first Mikhailov and then Kuznetsov) paid no attention to the situation. It was immoral to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of Pskov when all monuments were being destroyed, and they opened two monuments to Princess Olga on the same day: one monument by Tsereteli and the other one by Klykov. I told Mikhailov then: “This is just town Glupov”. Chapels are built while old monuments are being destroyed, and archbishop Evseviy is silent by some unknown reason. The Kremlin and Trinity cathedral were just included by town houses into their space. The crisis should not be referred to, as after the War the situation was much more terrible than now. When the War was being waged, palaces and parks in Leningrad, Novgorod, and Pskov began to be restored. And when 50 years ago I came to Novgorod and Pskov I thought that there were ruins. However everything was done: churches were whitened, we could work and walk there, and now it is impossible just to approach to those churches in Pskov. Besides, I must tell you, Novgorod is 200 kilometres aside, and everything is in ideal order there as compared with Pskov. I think that we must announce mobilization now. Tomorrow we will have a large conference in Pskov; there is the new young governor there, and [Grigoriy] Ivlev, Chairman of the Culture Committee [of the State Duma] and I will hold the conference on all these painful problems. It is necessary to help, Dmitry Anatolyevich, this is our frontier, the Schengen zone is nearby. Just think: 20 years ago the roof of the Pokrov tower of the 16th century burnt, there are no towers like this in Europe, everything has been turned into a toilet. When Arkadiy Mamontov showed it on TV, newspapers immediately wrote: “280 million roubles for restoration”. I called wooden work instaurators, they said: “10 million”. Later, in a month, Mr. Baturin, well-known to you, put the tower out to tender: he is arranging a restaurant there. We said: “Only after our death.” The Pskov restoration workshop has built a 9-storey residential house 20 meters aside from this tower. It all is taking place in Pskov.

And one more problem. There is one peaceful place in Pskov: this is the Pushkin reserve in Mikhailovskoye. Its director is Georgiy Nikolayevich Vasilevich, member of the Culture Council Presidium. The last six months local authorities arrange “masks-shows”, withdrawal of documents. When we tried to know who is doing it, we were told: “The order comes from Moscow”. And now Georgiy Nikolayevich has been in hospital for a month in the most grievous condition after all those inspections. If they destroy Mikhailovskoye as well… Besides, Pushkin celebrations have just started to reappear, and it is extremely important; I have brought you the invitation for the Pushkin day of poetry. The most serious attention should be paid to this subject.

I have spoken to your advisers, with Laptev, they know about it, they support us in all ways, we hope for your support as well. Here is the invitation for the Pushkin day. On the 21st of April we will hold the first Russian awarding of prizes to custodians of heritage in Pashkov House – it is a very important event. I would like you to turn to these issues.

And the last. The Ministry of Culture asked me, and I have given a draft: the edict of establishing of the title “Honoured Instaurator of the Russian Federation”, because instaurators are not nominated anyway.

Thank you very much.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

S. GANNUSHKINA: I will speak very briefly. The thing is that if I don’t speak it out now, my refugees will probably maul me by the evening.

I want to speak about the problem of humanitarian sphere as well: this is the situation with refugees and other kinds of migrants, which are very numerous in our country and which also need humanism, surely, as much as children and disabled people, they also demand investments. And, which is the most important, our legislation does not contain what Irina Yasina has mentioned: responsibility and deadlines. It is stipulated that they are entitled to this or that, but the time within which the government must perform these obligations is not specified. There are several groups that have waiting for performance of obligations to them for 20 years. These are 25 thousand people in Ossetia from internal regions of Georgia, who have already got the Russian citizenship but have not got any dwelling and are in terrible situation. These are persons without citizenship from Abkhazia. Today Abkhazia has been recognized, but we cannot speak about Georgians as the sphere of responsibility of Georgia, we are supposed to treat Abkhazia as an independent state that refuses to accept refugees back. Thus, those 30 thousands of Georgians who have left Abkhazia and are unable to return there should be legalized. We have not solved the problem of Baku Armenians yet. We are reproached that we do not protect Russian people. Russian people who have quit Chechnya and probably will not go back there, receive for their housing 120 thousand roubles. It is clear that with this money one cannot buy even a ruin in a village. And it is a shame, we must say, because when the state understands (we have repeatedly written to you, by the way, and we have written to Putin and have spoken about it), when the government understands how much it is necessary to pay, as in Prigorodny district, it gives three million, up to three million per family, and this is the minimum for people to provide themselves with dwelling.

I want to say that I would like to speak about the reform of migration policy, as it was spoken here about other reforms, but we have no migration policy and there is nothing to speak about. For the last years the Federal Migration Service has been reorganized six times, the government committee for migration policy has been liquidated, and there is no concept of migration policy. I would kindly ask you to initiate the restoration of the government committee for migration policy with participation of scientists and, naturally, the Federal Migration Service, that we cooperate with and that I express my compassion to, as well as public organizations.

I kindly ask you to pay attention to those several groups that we are writing about. It is impossible to neglect solving the problems for 20 years. People cannot stay in the territory of Russia instead of living in Russia.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

S. TSYPLENKOV: I am surprised and happy that we have at last found the time to speak about environment. In principle, it is not in traditions of our country, there is usually no time for environment until the trouble comes. But if we look at figures showing how many people live in unfavourable environmental conditions, and these are dozens of millions of people, if we consider the condition of water basins, air, situation with wastes, we will see that the trouble has come. Dmitry Anatolyevich, the trouble has come.

You know, when last year you and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin spoke at the Security Council, the environmentalists were shocked, in a good sense of this word, when they realized that the power at last decided to pay attention to environmental problems. The only question that interested everybody was: what will happen next. Everybody was afraid that the events will develop according to the well-known formula: we wanted to do the best, but it turned out as usual.

Unfortunately, a year later we may say that the greatest part of those questions that were brought up at the Security Council has not been performed. Moreover, a month and half after the Security Council meeting mayor Luzhkov signed the edict on construction of a ring of combustion plants, then the St. Petersburg government did the same and a number of other cities, in spite of the fact that combustion is a dead end way of solving this problem, both in environmental and economical senses, most countries have moved away from this method. It happens in spite of the fact that it is directly against the decisions taken by the Security Council. I will allow myself to cite your speech. You said that “The sector of pure technologies is impossible without solving of problems of utilization of recycled wastes. I think that a really advanced reply to the situation is creation of entire recycling industry in the country, transfer to resource-saving technologies.”

Dmitry Anatolyevich, in the early February we delivered to your Administration over 100 thousand appeals of Russian citizens who actually supported you approach. Nothing has been done so far. As far as I can understand, proposals of the Council have been delivered either, there are detailed proposals, but it is necessary to establish moratorium for construction of new combustion plants as soon as possible, otherwise it will be late.

The other example proving that everything is developing not according to your words and your appeals to situation with protected natural territories. The area of protected natural territories in the whole country is just the first percents, but these are exceptional, in the environmental sense, territories of our country but they are treated worse than the small business, believe me, everybody who are not lazy enough, all levels of power.

I want to give at least one example: this is the situation with natural reserve Utrish, Krasnodar Territory. It is the ultimately cynical, especially having in view you speeches. Instead of establishing a reserve, as it has been planned by the Government, the extermination of the territory is going on, cutting down, but these are unique century-old juniper and pistachio forests. Nothing of the kind has been preserved anywhere in our country. Why does it take place? All local people are sure, and the local authorities gladly support this assurance, that the construction of projects of the President’s Administration is planned there. That is, with the help of your name the notorious judicial nihilism is taking place. Only due to public opinion we managed to suspend temporarily the destruction of these unique forests. But only temporarily, because I have learned that a week ago the Ministry of Natural Resources received the assignment to prepare the project of the national park foundation. And why? Because the national park, its regime enables to give out a territory for development, to destroy forests.

And again, thousands of Russian citizens appealed to your Administration with the request to establish a reserve, as it has been planned by the Government of the Russian Federation in this territory. And the territory must be reserved for the reserve, otherwise it will be exterminated. Exterminated by your name, by the name of your Administration. It’s a tasty morsel, a unique territory of preserved wild life.

These two examples with wastes and protected territories actually illustrate the situation in our country in general. I would say that our nature protection legislation and nature protection institution have degraded. There are a lot of complex and system problems, maybe one of the meetings of the Council will be devoted to environmental issues.

Today I would like to mention one more problem. Starting from 2007, the institution of the state environmental expertise has been actually eliminated. It has happened in the frame of improvement of the law on town planning activity. As a result, only town planning expertise remained, but it has a particular task: assessment of a project compliance with technical regulations. Technical regulations on environmental safety does not exist and is not planned for development, thus, we have no instrument.

Thanks to the Olympiad in Sochi, under the pressure of the IOC, the state environmental expertise has been revived in federal protected natural territories, but it does not solve the entire complex of problems. I am just illustrating the fact that in theory a hazardous chemical plant may be built under your windows or a forest around your dacha may be destroyed. The government has no levers for assessment of environmental consequences of such activities and cessation thereof. I hope that if it happens to you, you will be able to stop it, but not in the frame of law. The remaining 142 million of Russian citizens have no lawful possibilities for it, and the government has not lawful possibilities to assess it.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, the State environmental expertise just must be restored. This is the viewpoint of the Council.

And the last thing I would like to draw your attention to: this is the situation with the global environmental problem – the problem of climate changes. We are one of the few countries that do not have any national strategy with this respect, there is even no governmental structure that would be responsible for development and performance of this strategy. It is possible to speak a lot on this issue, I would like to mention one moment. We will never build modern innovative economy if we increase power consumption of our economy. Meanwhile all strategies that exist now are aimed at increase of power consumption. According to the power strategy, the power consumption will have doubled by 2020, and it is directly connected with the issues of the climate. In my opinion, a political signal is required.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, if you announce that you personally will take part in the meeting of states devoted to the issues of climate changes that is scheduled for the end of this year, in December, in Copenhagen, and persuade the leaders, for instance, of the “eight” to take part personally in this meeting, the meeting that must take decision on this issue, it will be just great. The global problem needs a global leader, why our country cannot become this climatic leader? Taking into consideration that there was one “anticlimatic” leader – George Bush, but he is not a leader any more.

Let me finish with your quotation. Dmitry Anatolyevich. Before that very Security Council, speaking on huge environmental problems, you said: “It is necessary to solve such problems by means of joint work of all levels of power and public environmental organizations, they are ready to it,” – and you were absolutely right, the society has been ready to it for a long time, and the society has been waiting for a long time for the power to be ready to mutual solving of these problems.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

V. GEFTER: Just according to the alphabetical order after environment there is such word as extremism. I must tell you that, at least from my viewpoint, such problem does not exist in the country at all, if we don’t mention two things: the terrorism, that has already been put in the frame of extremism, but this is a separate thing, and Russian xenophobia violence, first of all, against person, violent crimes.

I shall not describe you what has been going on the latest years, and the problem still exists, in spite of, I must admit, notable positive trend in the activity of law enforcement bodies on prosecution, including judiciary prosecution, of people guilty in these dreadful antihuman crimes against aliens. All this is written in the same analytical summary that we have delivered to you.

But the thing is that it is complicated from time to time by various phobias. We had “islamophobia” that practically still exists in some regions; now, during the crisis it might become sharper, being connected with “migrantophobia”, etc. One more problem, quite unexpected for us, has appeared, it is connected with what we call unlawful antiextremism. It means that absolutely “rubber”, absolutely out of common sense frames federal legislation is complicated by the dreadful law enforcement practice with respect to numerous people who are attributed to extremists in our country. Many speakers here have mentioned attacks and some other things. I can tell you one thing, it is easier to show the situation with the help of a vivid example. In one of Moscow prisons, in the department of preliminary imprisonment Aleksey Olesinov, a young 23-year-old man is kept, a graduate of philosophical department, though he hasn’t completed the course; on the birthday of Hitler he could be sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment, though he has committed practically nothing; he might be sentenced only because investigators and other bodies think that he is one of the leaders of the “Antifa” movement. I am not a supporter of this movement, just as of many other youth movements, rather radical by their view, but not by violence. But when a person is sent (probably, I emphasize) for 5 years to the “zona” for some short confrontation, committed even not with a law enforcer, but with another person, this shows what our law enforcement bodies are aimed at.

In connection with this problem both of racist violence and unlawful antiextremism, we ask you for one little step that, in our opinion might produce some positive influence. Besides public statements with accusation of one and the other in various understanding, the efforts of the government and the society shall be focused, and various law enforcement bodies should be coordinated. For this sake we offer either to establish a committee on the problems of this racist violence, xenophobia and discrimination, or, and it might be even better, to appoint a special representative or, as it has been introduced, a national coordinator. We need a person who would focus not only governmental, but our public efforts. We have many elaborations in the sphere both of legislation and specific practices of work with law enforcement bodies. Because if you have a look at that St. Petersburg book from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that was given to you, you will understand what future militiamen or other law enforcers are fed from the viewpoint of extremism.

If we don’t concentrate our efforts and start broad, but joint attack at this trouble, it might become as widespread and sharp as are many others that were spoken about today.

Thank you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

B. PUSTYNTSEV: Mr. President, let me say a few words with respect to this book.

D. MEDVEDEV: I have already looked it through, I have run through several sections. The book is unique, of course.

B. PUSTYNTSEV: I am sorry, the thing is not only in this book, but in extremely troubled situation in the management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The thing is that (you have looked it through)… but why, how could it happen that the largest educational institution of the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs publishes and distributes extremist materials?

In our opinion, such situation appeared with appointment of General Vladimir Yakovlevich Kikot’ to the position of the head of the personnel and educational work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because before that the situation was quite different. By his order all contacts of the university with human rights organizations stopped, a number of programs has been closed, and we believe that without serious personnel changes in the system of the Ministry it is impossible to eliminate so dangerous trends in education of future law enforcers.

And the last thing. As a result of the scandal the university management has withdrawn the book from the library, but up to the beginning of April it had been sold freely in the bookstore of the university, and a part of the circulation was sold. As in any large team, in the university there are professors and students with quite different beliefs, including right radical ones. Photocopies of this so called textbook have already appeared.

We ask you, Mr. President to draw to these facts the attention of the Prosecutor’s Office, that, evidently, should appeal to the court with the request to recognize this textbook as extremist material prohibited for distribution. Thank you for your attention.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

Colleagues, I will comment on some things, and there are others that I will not comment on because I myself still need to figure everything out, because there are many documents that require careful attention. The one thing I can guarantee is that I will read all of these documents personally. I do not know whether or not I will agree with the arguments they present, but when I do agree, I will deal with it and give orders to colleagues who are responsible for a given aspect of government work.

We have had a long discussion. First, a few words regarding NGOs in our country and the corresponding law that was passed in 2006. On many occasions, I have had to discuss this law with various people. You know what my feeling is? By the way, I would not say that the law is ideal and works perfectly, that it merely needs to be complied with, and subject to such compliance everything will be great, NGOs will operate within the legal framework and everyone will be happy, especially the government. However, as I see it, the issue now is somewhat different. The application of the law has created a certain trend of how NGOs are perceived. I have to admit the fact that the law has been interpreted in such a way that many officials are now under the impression that all NGOs are enemies of the state and should be fought, so that they do not transmit some sort of disease that may undermine the foundations of our society. I think such interpretation is simply dangerous. The law was never intended for such an interpretation which is just impossible. I agree with the opinion that real law offenders or those who threaten national security would never bother to register NGOs and would engage in their activities through other means.

Nevertheless, the government must monitor these processes. Let us at some future point return to the issue of the legal grounds for the NGOs operation in the country. I will instruct the Presidential Executive Office to review your suggestions. No doubt, the initiatives incorporated into the 2006 law included some rational ideas, therefore we should not toss everything aside. Instead, we should look critically at the practice of applying this legislation, taking into consideration the points you made and the issues I have outlined. I will instruct the Presidential Executive Office and the Government accordingly.

Now, a few general notes. I would not break the history of the relationship between the government and society into some chronological periods, such as up to 2001, 2001 to 2004, or 2004 to 2008 – although in terms of dating, it may be possibly done, as certain times are usually associated with activities of certain people, with certain leaders, or certain decisions. I agree we must shape a sound and adequate communication strategy. There must be political competition and nothing can replace it. So I think we should set a working group to see what can be done. I am in favour of such an idea.

In regard to civil control and confidence crisis, I believe you know the confidence crisis is global. In any case, everyone I meet to discuss economic issues begins by talking about one and the same thing: the effects, or rather, the cause of today’s economic crisis lies in the loss of confidence in economic institutions and in the ethics behind their operations. That is why I do not feel that the crisis of confidence is specific to Russian society or to the relations between our society and our government. True, the 20th century was dramatic for Russia and hence a deep-rooted public distrust toward institutions of power. Such distrust has not been fully overcome and in some respects has even grown greater – an extremely dangerous development which must not be ignored.

That is why control, including civil control, is important – both in regard to law enforcement and in regard to civil servants. I cannot and will not deny evident facts, and moreover, I myself have stated that our government machine is steeped in corruption. For a long time, I reflected on attitudes toward corruption in general, whether it should be addressed or not, because when I came up with those ideas, I naturally heard lots of identical opinions on the subject. People would say, why bother, the problem may not be sorted out overnight anyway, there will always be complaints that certain facts are not disclosed and certain officials are immune to investigations. But ultimately, I decided that it would be an unforgivable mistake if I do not make the step, as the process must be initiated in any event. Even the tiny steps we have taken or the legislative instruments we have passed, even the tax declarations we have published, these are all the right moves. I do understand all of this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, but it is still a step in the right direction, and it is useful if a step like that is initiated by the President. We need to move forward, and I fully support the idea of developing all sorts of civil control, including the Web blogs that were mentioned, among others. Blog-reading is a reliable and fairly independent indicator which I sometimes use when I want to get information that has not been retouched by my colleagues, my staff, who naturally do their jobs well. But nonetheless, sometimes it is important to have access to unfiltered information – and not just sometimes, but really, every day.

Nevertheless, I should say the blogosphere is not an ideal instrument, because it is a corporately organised medium, so when you visit some blog, you are aware that the bloggers who submit their comments there would evidently share more or less the same opinion. I only say that to demonstrate there are no perfect scales or control instruments, therefore every tool must be employed.

Well, I will speak to Vladimir Petrovich separately. Actually, I thought that I was performing my promise, but it turned out that I wasn’t. We have already met with you the number of times that complied with previously determined scenario: once a quarter. But if I missed something, then I am ready for satisfaction.

Concerning the legislation, the issues which Tamara Georgievna was speaking about. With respect to all these draft laws, I am ready to review them myself, but I need you to pass me that letter. I confirm my non-acceptance of the idea, that we realized in the past, concerning three trial years for a judge. In my opinion it is a senseless thing that is really contradicts the general idea of irremovability of judges and creates the possibility of such rather tin-pot manipulation: you must behave yourself. Besides, you said yourself that I said it at the Congress, that if a person does not deserve the position, why wait for three years, he should be dismissed a month upon he came to this position. That is why I think that it is necessary to be accomplished.

Concerning the process of selection of judges. I must agree with the fact that this process demands more transparency. I have already made certain steps in this direction. Because such absolutely curved patterns that occurred here some time ago, there are none of them any more, but additional movements in this direction are required. Perhaps, if may be a disciplinary body or a disciplinary court, that is to consist of judges, including retired ones, for them not to be afraid that they will be beaten at heads.

Concerning military judges. In this field our position should not change: there must be no military judges, judges with epaulets. Judges must be civil, it is evident. By the way, we practically had no discussion on this subject. There is a separate discussion concerning military prosecutors, but concerning judges – judges must be absolutely civil persons, otherwise it undermines fundamental principles of legal proceedings.

It was good to hear that human rights activists are supporting the military reform. Have no doubt, the reform will be accomplished, because unlike everything you spoke about, Ida Nikolaevna, and you mentioned various initiatives, but still this is the first reform ever. All previous efforts were…

I. KUKLINA: Absolutely correct, it is the first one.

D. MEDVEDEV: …were imitations. I do not want to name or blame anyone in that respect, as there were various reasons for the lack of such reform in the past, there simply wasn’t enough funding, or political will. This is the first reform, so it is fairly harsh, and naturally, it triggers disagreements. Still, the military do understand they will benefit from the reforms as it is clearly better to be paid 100 or 150 thousand roubles a month rather than ten thousand, for risking your neck.

Concerning the treaty with South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the legislation base. Frankly speaking, I would like to find out what you mean, because recently I have signed the Treaty with South Ossetia and the Treaty with Abkhazia.

I. KUKLINA: It is said there that the treaty on military issues will be concluded…

D. MEDVEDEV: Yes, but nevertheless, this means that judicial situation is different, this is not an edict of one citizen, let it even be the President of Russia, but this is an international agreement. However, you are right, it really causes the necessity of one more treaty conclusion, it will be prepared. I just want to say that fundamentally the situation is somewhat different: this is an international act having supernational force. I cannot object to the demand that there should be no conscripts in the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Equally, I would like to say that we, of course, will solve the problem of a special base for quartering of our Armed Forces there and, surely, the status of military servants, because this is a separate complicated issue, I won’t dissemble. But nevertheless I will control it personally, because I understand that I am directly responsible for it, as for other things in the country.

Concerning the status of veterans of military actions. I thing that it is the easiest of what you mentioned. It could be done by one movement. I will check.

I. KUKLINA: Your words are the best present for my birthday.

D. MEDVEDEV: Thank you.

Concerning one more important topic which was brought up by Lyudmila Mikhailovna, regarding non-violent gatherings and the right to hold rallies or demonstrations. Of course, for our country, this topic is one of the more resonant ones. I think you know this better than I. Naturally, the authorities never want to allow these kinds of events, and their decisions are partially understandable, but in any case, they are not based on the rule of law.

L. ALEKSEEVA: We have the Constitution. It doesn’t matter what they want!

D. MEDVEDEV: This is what we are speaking about – it doesn’t matter what somebody wants. Where do I see a problem here? The problem is that a great deal depends on the cultural background of the authorities who make decisions to either allow or not allow a demonstration or another type of gathering, or to even use law enforcement authorities to prevent it. Some authorities are wise enough to act accurately and make reasoned decisions on transferring the event to more or less safe areas, but others do not have that sense, and simply ban an event.

What is extremely important in this situation? I am not against the necessity to check regulatory base, though I feel that at present it is rather sterile, and we are unlikely to catch up somebody here. Most likely, we are talking about inner motives and fears of the decision makers. But there should be no fear. There should be caution instead, so as not to endanger lives and the safety of people who want to gather to make themselves heard by the authorities. So the core problem is about the motivations behind decisions made and the signals sent by central authorities. This is the point of importance.

L. ALEKSEEVA: That is why I am asking you, Mr. President.

D. MEDVEDEV: Besides, in my opinion, although our courts often deserve criticism, I feel that every denial should be subjected to judicial proceedings, and a court should be addressed with a request to review the reasons for a denial. The situation in Moscow, for example, differs from other places, as here we have special regulations and face specific challenges. But as far as all other cities are concerned, I am certain that not everyone, meaning the local authorities, would want to stand before a court hearing for unlawful denial of a permit to have a rally, a picket, etc.

Regarding Kaliningrad, I have said that we will find out. I don’t know what is going on there, I mean what you have mentioned, regarding the closing of the hospital and those 25 pickets that take place there.

L. ALEKSEEVA: Mr. President, I have a letter to you in this regard.

D. MEDVEDEV: Give it to me. Good.

L. ALEKSEEVA: I haven’t taken it today, Ella Alexandrovna will deliver it to you.

D. MEDVEDEV: Send then with Ella Alexandrovna. We have agreed then.

And the last of what you have mentioned. I have just occasionally been in London recently and I saw that very Hyde Park. It looks great, of course, though I must agree with my colleagues, not everything is seen well, it is not just such burned field, everything is closed there, but nevertheless the place is very nice. I agree, that if we look for some place for events of such kind, this should not be some empty space around garages, close to an industrial zone or somewhere else. Moscow authorities should be requested to create some kind of a Hyde Park here, to plant some trees and arrange everything in order to use the area for public gatherings.

I have already spoken regarding legislation on NGOs, other colleagues have returned to it. We have also discussed crimes against individuals, against journalists, and against human rights activists, of course, everything is correct. I shall not argue with Aleksey Kirillovich Simonov. Investigations of such crimes must never be abandoned, there is no other way to do it. I spoke to the director of the Investigative Committee about the latest serious crime that concerned the public opinion, I mean the murder of a lawyer and a journalist. As far as I understand, they are quite close to completing the investigation, but unfortunately, you are right, we have often heard from law enforcement authorities that they had reached some results and were just on the verge of arresting the criminals, but ultimately, nothing happened and no one was arrested. This had a most negative effect on the public opinion.

I will request relevant reports from the Prosecutor General and the director of the Investigative Committee. You are right, dissent is no crime, and all of Russia’s history proves this with all bloody evidence.

I must agree with the words of Irina Evgenyevna Yasina that the whole 20th century is the denial of the value of human life. These are sad lessons, but nevertheless it was very important for me to hear that you are optimistic. This is, probably, the most important.

Speaking about the situation with disabled people integration, I think that everything depends on us. This is maybe even easier than anything else, though, of course, this is also a big problem. Literally a week ago, in the same hall the Council on affairs of disabled people was held. We must do in such a way that no power could avoid it. And I see that in those places where the power is thinking over the decisions taken, and unfortunately, it is not everywhere in the same way, the same ramps are built without even regulations on responsibility. Because this is some internal necessity, absolutely human one. Of course, we could load this Law with responsibility for non-building. But, on the other hand, it doesn’t work too well either. Anyway, we should amend not the Law itself, but technical regulations, in order to make them impossible to be ignored.

Regarding the Law on Custody and Guardianship that Svetlana Innokentyevna was speaking about. You know, I want to sort out myself, I not just read this Law, I actually corrected it, at that time I was working in the Government. As any other law it is not ideal.

What I want to say? There is patronage in this Law, I tell you absolutely definitely, and regulations on patronage. Moreover, this is the first law in which patronage was subject to specific regulation, a legal structure appeared there. Now we can develop some provisions of this law, but it is definite that they exist there.

I just know that certain colleagues who I communicated with had another point of view, another concept, I spoke to them personally. But I can tell you that this is to some extent my point of view, but it does not mean that it is the best one.

S. SOROKINA: Dmitry Anatolyevich, just one moment. The point is that the law says a child may not be kept by any institution longer than a month if the child has been adopted by a family, and patronage means that a child is sort of supported by the state, and an adopting family and professionals bear a joint responsibility. Do you understand, it contradicts, it destroys.

D. MEDVEDEV: Svetlana Innokentyevna, it depends on the way we regard patronage. But anyway it is good that this law has appeared, because without this law… I just remember, when I came somewhere to our regions, and patronage parents told me: “You know, we have a request, make, please, a special legislation on this issue, because we are nearly prosecuted as criminals.” There even were attempts to put the governor to administrative responsibility, by the way, because in some regions there was patronage, and in some regions prosecutors thought that such institute does not exist.

Let us return to this question, I am not against it, but I mean that we should understand how the institute is developing.

E. PAMFILOVA: Excuse me, may I add? The thing is that regulation on development of this law has not been made, this is the point.

D. MEDVEDEV: The point is not only in the regulation, this is the issue of the law itself. Let us just think how to adjust structures included into this law to modern life, because we will definitely not do without this institution.

Regarding social advertising, as far as I can understand, we have no proposals on making social advertising equal to commercial advertising. On the contrary, half of the lowest level of prices for advertising is proposed. These are different things, there is no such stupid thing. But in the State Duma there is a lot of nice things. They have said, everybody has heard, everything is recorded, minutes are maintained. As soon as it is distributed, it will be placed on the site. So, the society will know, including the Duma society.

We well deal in the issue of refugees by all means. I will assign to restore the committee on migration policy. If it is considered a governmental one…

S. GANNUSHKINA: Yes, a governmental committee, in order to create a mutual ground.

D. MEDVEDEV: As for the environment, it is true we have just come to realise the importance of the subject for the country. I shall admit the crisis has a very negative impact on addressing the environment. When I travelled around the country last year and spoke with entrepreneurs, some of whom are referred to as oligarchs, I saw, as surprising as this sounds, their desire to address environmental problems. They said, yes, we bought this even though it is rubbish, and we would like to invest money into bringing everything in order, so that the rates of emission and other indicators are acceptable. Now, of course, it is true that everything has slowed down in this respect.

Regarding those alarms you have mentioned I will definitely check.

Concerning the State environmental expertise, I will commission to return to this issue.

Regarding combustion, I have already commissioned to deal in Moscow ideas. I am aware of what is going on there.

And finally: climate change. This topic is very complicated, and I discuss it with my colleagues. I must say, in Russia, we are quite educated in this regard, as we have people who are concerned with the problem and try to monitor it, as we have you who care, whereas in some other countries, they just shut their eyes to it.

REMARK: In the USA.

D. MEDVEDEV: The Americans. But at present they have become a little more mobile, or the Chinese, India. These are our partners, who are quite indifferent to this topic. But we do understand that issues of climate change can only be resolved through joint efforts, that is why we signed the Kyoto Protocol, counting on others to join it, but different countries act in very different ways. Nevertheless, we will certainly continue our efforts.

I am ready to discuss it again at the G8 summit that will take place in Italy this summer, where all the key players will be present, along with the Group of Five members such as China and India. But this issue is extremely complicated. Nonetheless, the government must address it, so do not despair, we will be striving to implement the Security Council’s resolution.

The last problem brought up here is that of extremism. I feel that we have made advances on the subject, because just 10 years ago, the law enforcement authorities were reluctant to deal with it or even discuss it. Now, they have begun addressing it, and they have been initiating some criminal cases – perhaps not as often as they should, but nevertheless, progress has been made.

Of course, I shall see the paper regarding the particular person, which you have passed me. But concerning a coordinator, it is necessary to think what he is able to do. In this sense the idea does not seem to me incontestable, but anyway I shall think whether this person will be able to accumulate some powers that will be real enough.

After all, submitting a report, establishing a committee of some sort, or making an appointment is not what is most important. You and I understand that in our country, that is the last thing that works. What is important is the impact we create, you at one level, and the President at another. And the important things are the practical decisions which will be brought to life.

Colleagues, this meeting was very interesting for me. We have not had an opportunity to talk in a long time, although I personally know many of you, and we have our own history of contacts going back to the days when I headed the Presidential Executive Office.

Summing up, I would like to reiterate that the practice of such meetings will be continued, perhaps even more often than once or twice a year, because there are too many problems to solve.

Goodbye.