Fourth meeting of Council of Investigative Committee’s senior officials

The fourth meeting of the Council of the Investigative Committee’s Senior Officials under the Investigative Committee Chairman has taken place today. The event was attended by members of the Council and some heads of divisions of the Investigative Committee’s Central Office.

Among the issues on the agenda was the one on introduction and functioning of a criminal case’s electronic passport, criteria for assessing the work of Investigative Committee’s divisions and staffing of the Investigative Committee.

Head of the HR department Viktor Dolzhenko and heads of the Volgograd Region, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia Offices and some other senior officials put forward a number of proposals on improved staffing of the Investigative Committee. Correct placement of personnel is the guarantee of successful and professional performance of the agency, this is why Alexander Bastrykin set up a task to organize the system of training young investigators by two academies in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The regional offices are responsible for the primary selection of candidates who after getting higher legal education will work as investigators in the office that directed them to the academy.

Speaking at the meeting about introducing a criminal case’s electronic passport, members of the Council said that such a passport has been successfully used for more than two years by the North-Caucasian Federal District Directorate when documenting the results of investigators. The aim of the system is ensuring efficient procedural control over all principle directions. The electronic passport enables entering digital and other copies of procedural documents and inspection materials into a database. This has had a good preventive effect and disciplined investigators. Vice Chairman of the Investigative Committee Ilya Lazutov noted the importance if reliable confidentiality of investigative data which may be involved in the system.

Summarizing the discussion of so important innovation, Mr. Bastrykin mentioned another side of this issue: there is no doubt, that the system will help to organize and control the work done by investigators, but training of young investigators should also be provided by filling the electronic database with guidance materials on investigation of different crimes and court rulings. The principle task for each of the senior officials is still cultivating devotion of the profession among all young investigators.

Moving over to the formulating criteria for assessing the work of investigative bodies, Mr. Bastrykin said that “whatever parameters of the results of investigative authorities’ activity, they must provide trustworthy information and be based on the indicators in the forms of federal statistics which in addition to investigative authorities are also provided to the Prosecutor’s office and police. This will help to eliminate tampering with statistical data.”

“There should not be too many indicators used for ranking. They must reflect the real situation in the Investigative Committee – efficient investigation of crimes, ensuring legality of initial investigators, protection of citizens’ rights. I point out that heads of investigative divisions must be aimed at doing real work instead of pursuing high ratings,” the Chairman added.

Acting Head of Media Relations                                                                                                         S.L. Petrenko