At present, Russian officials are obliged to declare their expenditures on the purchase of real estate, vehicles and securities if their amount exceeds the income received over the last three years by the official and his (her) spouse, while information on such a transaction received from law enforcement agencies, a state (municipal) body, a foundation, a corporation, the Bank of Russia, political parties and all-Russian public movements may become the basis for a decision to control expenditures.
The State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption is currently working on the possibility of enshrining in legislation the obligation of officials who have left the service to report on their expenses.
While the relevant bill has not yet been drafted in Russia, we have analyzed how other countries apply anti-corruption declaration mechanisms to former civil servants.
According to the provisions of the Nicaraguan Constitution, all civil servants must disclose information about their assets before taking office and after leaving it.
Similar legislation is in place in Afghanistan, Argentina, and the Philippines. The deadline for filing declarations in these countries is 1 month (30 days).
In Macao (Special Administrative Region of China), employees must submit (update) a declaration of assets and interests within 3 months after leaving office, and in Nigeria - a declaration of assets, property and liabilities.
In Albania, an employee leaving a public position submits within 15 days a declaration of changes in assets, liabilities and interests from the previous declaration (filed upon taking office, annual or submitted upon request). The previous legal provisions in the country on the need to submit a declaration of assets 2 years after dismissal have now been abolished.
According to the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Montenegro, upon dismissal from public service, a former official shall submit a declaration of assets within 15 days and after one year from the date of dismissal.
Similar mechanisms are in place in Slovenia, where an employee submits a declaration within one month after leaving and one year after.
In Kyrgyzstan, former employees submit declarations within 30 days and two years after leaving the service.
Thus, from the point of view of international practice, the very idea of exercising some kind of control over the assets of former officials seems reasonable.
However, the Russian initiative to introduce the obligation to report on one's expenses after dismissal from the civil service is currently not elaborated and raises many questions.
Thus, considering the practice of establishing the obligation of anti-corruption declaration for former officials in foreign countries, one can speak about a comprehensive approach to the content of such declarations (information on available assets, property, liabilities, interests).
At the same time, the selectivity of the declaration principle discussed by Russian lawmakers raises certain doubts. On the one hand, it seems logical that former officials may use illegally obtained funds after leaving office in order to avoid control over their expenditures and in this case consider major transactions made by them as possible "indicators of corruption". On the other hand, the receipt of money, benefits and advantages after leaving public office by former officials is a possible indicator of corruption.
In addition to the substantive aspect of the discussed innovations, the issue of their practical implementation is important. In particular, it remains unclear how such anti-corruption restrictions will be applied to ordinary citizens, but not to public persons, and whether this will not violate their rights.
Рассматривая опыт зарубежных стран, можно отметить, что проверку деклараций, как правило, осуществляет либо специализированный контролирующий орган (такой, как Главное управления контроля в Афганистане, Высшая инспекция декларирования и аудита активов в Албании), либо отдельный орган, в ведении которого находятся вопросы прохождения государственной службы (например, Агентство государственной службы в Киргизии, Комиссия государственной службы на Филиппинах, Национальная комиссия публичной этики в Аргентине, Комиссия по недопущению конфликта интер
In Russia, verification of declarations of employees is carried out by the departments for prevention of corruption and other offenses of the respective bodies where they serve, and a limited number of persons (representatives of the employer for the employee subject to verification) have the authority to send requests to the registration authorities (in order to obtain information about the presence of real estate, vehicles, and certain transactions). In this regard, it remains unclear how the verification will be carried out.
Currently, one of the key law enforcement mechanisms in case of detection of discrepancy between an official's expenses and his/her income is the conversion of property acquired with funds, the origin of which the employee could not explain, into the state income (for example, according to the General Prosecutor's Office, in the first half of 2017, property worth 230 million rubles was converted into the state income).