MOSCOW, August 19 (RAPSI) - Members of the Orenburg Legislative Council propose amending the Criminal Code to allow seizure of a public official’s property for taking a bribe, Izvestia reports on Wednesday.

Currently, the punishment for accepting a bribe involves only the confiscation of the property that is used as evidence in the case. The parliament members also suggested abandoning fines as an easy punishment but keeping criminal liability (a prison term) and re-introducing the seizure of property.

“The proposed measures stipulate that the seizure of property would again be a penalty for bribe-taking,” the newspaper quotes an explanatory note to the bill.

The bill’s authors say that “reinstating the punishment (seizure of property) to the criminal system would make fighting corruption more efficient.”

After the bill is passed in the local legislative council, it will be submitted to the State Duma.