Events

Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin has given a lecture at the Moscow Academy of the Investigative Committee for major cases investigators, senior investigators of territorial offices and professors. The lecture was on higher efficiency of Investigative Committee’s offices.

Mr. Bastrykin reminded the present about the results of a court reform continued by a reform of investigative bodies: “Clear division of investigative and controlling functions runs all through those transformations which undoubtedly has enhanced effectiveness and impartiality of investigation.” Summing up the performance of the Investigative Committee over the past six years, Mr. Bastrykin said: “Investigators have checked more than 5 million reports of crimes; have opened 808 thousand criminal cases; more than 570 thousand cases against 640 thousand accused have been referred to courts. Almost 153 billion rubles has been compensated during preliminary investigations (and pre-investigative checks), and property of the accused and suspects worth more than 77 billion rubles has been arrested.”

Speaking about criteria to evaluate the investigative work, Mr. Bastrykin said that in the first place they are the quality and impartiality, and pointed out that “such an important factor as public opinion based on the confidence of each citizen in their safety also has to be one of main criteria.”

The Chairman spoke in detail on fighting corruption, illegal prosecution of businessmen, humanization of criminal law and the practice of imposing a new criminal measure of a court fine when the accused is released from criminal responsibility, explained the point and importance of legal initiatives put forward by the Investigative Committee and their implementation in practice.

Moving on to manpower Mr. Bastrykin noted the most important aspect of organizing the work of investigative authorities was “getting young specialists linger on and adaptation of law universities’ graduates.” He said that for better human resource work, the Council of Young Investigators was established last year to receive information on the problems young specialists have to face during their first steps in the profession. The data are being accumulated at the moment and measures are being undertaken to create comfortable working conditions of investigators. The Chairman also named tasks the Council of Investigative Authorities’ Senior Officials in the field of activating training and professional development of employees including those in reserve for being nominated. Mr. Bastrykin also stressed the continuing consistent work being done in cooperation with ministries and agencies to improve the social benefits for Investigative Committee’s staff. One of its directions is providing investigators with housing.

The Chairman drew attention of the audience to some key areas in the activities of the Investigative Committee in the current year. He noted that “to make optimal managerial decisions, it is planned to widely use results of considering reports coming from citizens, including those on abuses in housing utilities, education and healthcare, on overdue wages, pensions, benefits and other social payouts.” Special attention will be paid to investigations of iatrogenic crimes. Higher attention will as it has been before, be paid to investigation of crimes committed in previous years. Mr. Bastrykin also said that efforts would be consistently built up jointly with inspectorates to break off the channels financing extremists and terrorists and recruitment of Russian citizens to terrorist organizations.

An active dialogue followed the lecture. The audience got answered to their questions, thanked the Chairman and expressed their readiness to follow the course outlined by the Chairman and execute their duty with honor.

Acting Head of Media Relations                                                                                                                S.L. Petrenko