On air of RBC CEO of Baikal Communications Group Eduard Voytenko shared his opinion on how it is possible for the deputies of the State Duma of Russian Federation to lobby the interests of law enforcement agencies and services.

On air of the “CHEZ” program Eduard Voytenko commented on the results of the research conducted by the Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives of “Transparency International”. According to them, the organization assigned every fifth parliamentarian to the “power lobby”. Mr. Voytenko stressed that the interest of “Transparency International” in analyzing lobby technologies in our country is largely explained by the wrong idea of connection between lobbying and corruption. The speaker noted that in spite of the absence of lobbying legislation, lobbyism is indirectly regulated by a number of laws, e.g. Federal Law № 74 “On Civil Service”, Federal Law № 224 “On Public-private Partnership” and other normative legal acts and regulations. Assigning several deputies of the State Duma of Russian Federation to “power lobby” is not entirely correct because all decisions of the Lower House of Russian Parliament on increasing budgetary allocations for the “power” ministries and departments today fully correspond with the state policy on strengthening the defense capability of Russia. The State Armaments Programs-2020 and -2027 make evidence to this statement. Upon these programs, dozens of trillions rubles are spent on rearmament of Russian Armed Forces and is considered in the federal budget for a year ahead. There simply cannot be a “closed circle of deputies of the power lobby”. All deputies are elected by the people, not appointed by the law enforcement agencies. Finally, statistics shows that since the middle of the 2000s the federal budget, worked out by the Government of the Russian Federation in accordance with the provisions of annual Budget Message of the President, has been adopted by the State Duma, as it was introduced by the Government without changes. This fact once again confirms that the deputies of the State Duma do not influence the content of the federal budget.

Speaking about the possibility of lobbying through the Lower House of the Russian parliament in general, Eduard Voytenko noted that its committees, subcommittees and commissions, its law-making power, discussion of any proposal of the Government of Russian Federation, gives to it certain opportunities to influence one or another legislative initiative. Communication with profile committees should be based on high-quality expertise and readiness to provide objective information to parliamentarians, useful to discuss and adopt legislative resolutions. However, it should be noted that most laws passed in Russian Parliament are the laws initiated by the Government. And federal authorities are ready to hear expert opinions from its representatives.

The air of the “CHEZ” program is available via the link.

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