MOSCOW, May 24 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov) – The Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights Boris Titov has proposed, among other measures, to expand powers of the Supreme Court and prosecutors in criminal cases, RAPSI learnt during the conference at Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

On Wednesday, Titov presented an analytical report for the Russian President on the state of criminal legislation’s execution in regulation of entrepreneurial activity. The document contains statistical data proving conclusions on rising level of pressure against business caused by rising number of launched economical criminal cases. In addition, the rising number of detained defendants in criminal cases in a sphere of entrepreneurial activity also contributes to the increased pressure.

The report reads that, among other reasons causing negative effects in relations between business and law enforcement, are the lack of a clearly formulated state policy in the sphere of criminal legislation and bias towards prosecution during review of the cases by courts. There is also a problem of lack of supervision over investigation, mass violations of procedural legislation, lack of independence of experts, other flaws in legislation and law enforcement.

The Commissioner proposes to humanize the criminal legislation in multiple way, including expanding institution of closure for criminal cases after the damage is repaid by a defendant. Another measure is to decriminalize some instances of entrepreneurial activity without proper licensing, excluding production of alcohol, tobacco and some other products.

In order to improve the situation with pressure against business as well as all citizens under prosecution, the business ombudsman proposes to expand powers of the Supreme Court regarding its right to review and cancel sentences issued with violations. Other measures include expansion of prosecutors’ supervision over investigation. According to Titov, procedural standards related to economic crimes should be separated into a special part of the Criminal Code and a special body for investigation of these crimes should be created. Finally, he proposes to improve the state of qualification for judges.