News
02.07.2008
Conference of Prosecutors General of Europe “The Role of Public Prosecution in the Protection of Human Rights and Public Interests outside the Criminal Law Field”
The Conference of Prosecutors General of Europe (CPGE) dedicated to the topic “The Role of Public Prosecution in the Protection of Human Rights and Public Interests outside the Criminal Law Field” will be held from 1-3 July, 2008, in the Constantine Palace, St. Petersburg.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation holds the Conference in collaboration with the Council of Europe for the purposes of exchange of experience and preparation of recommendations to the Council of Europe member states to intensify the role of public prosecution outside the criminal law field.
The Conference chaired by Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yuri Chaika is attended by Secretary General of the Council of Europe the Right Hon Terry Davis, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg, Director General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs of the Council of Europe Philippe Boillat, 47 European Prosecutors General, representatives of the European Court of Human Rights, Eurojust, European Committee on Crime Problems and International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.
The Consultative Council of European Prosecutors included this Conference into one of its priorities for 2007-2008.
It is noteworthy that all 47 Council of Europe member states may be nominally divided into two groups. The first group consists of the states where public prosecutor’s offices have powers solely in the criminal law field. The second group comprises of the states where public prosecutor’s offices exercise, to a certain extent, functions for the protection of human rights and public interests outside the criminal law field that is more than 75 per cent of the Council of Europe member states.
The core activity of the Prosecution Service of the Russian Federation outside the criminal law field is supervision over implementation of laws directly connected with strengthening of legality in the actions of the public authorities and aimed at the actual protection of human rights and freedoms of man and citizen. Thus, in 2007, over 2,000 statutory acts of the constituent elements of the Russian Federation and 115,000 municipal statutory acts were brought in line with the federal legislation. More than 97 per cent of statutory acts out of all statutory acts contested by the Prosecution Service as on January 1, 2008, were brought in line with the current legislation.
Supervision over social sphere remains to be even more popular. First, it includes the right to life, security, freedom of movement and protection against poverty ensured through prosecutorial supervision. This work is a key area of activities of the Russian prosecution authorities.
Labor payment is under special control. In 2007, in the interests of citizens about 300,000 lawsuits recovering wages payable totaling more than RUR 2.3 billion were filed to courts. The records of prosecutorial verifications showed that 20,000 employers were brought to administrative liability; over 400 criminal cases were initiated against a number of executives.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office actively supervises over implementation of health care legislation. In 2007, almost 33,000 violations were discovered in the health care sphere including more than 1,000 unlawful statutory acts. To eliminate violations of the law, public prosecutors lodged over 1,000 protests, issued about 8,500 presentations following which over 4,000 persons were brought to disciplinary liability.
The prosecution authorities exercise an important function protecting life and health of people in transport. Following verifications conducted in 2007, public prosecutors detected over 50,000 various infringements at railway transport, over 14,000 – at water transport, about 15,000 – at air transport. For the purposes of elimination of the infringements, public prosecutors issued over 9,000 presentations, lodged about 6,000 protests, and filed over 7,500 lawsuits to courts.
At present, the prosecution authorities included the protection of rights of economic entities and freedom of business activity and liquidation of administrative limitations in business in the major areas of their activities. To promptly disclose and eliminate infringements of rights of businessmen, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation launched a special section “Prosecutorial Supervision over Observance of Rights of Business Entities and Entrepreneurs”. This section contains a form for application of entrepreneurs to the Prosecutor Generals’ Office of the Russian Federation by means of the Internet in relation to violations of their rights and legal interests.
Public prosecutors actively exercise their powers by filing applications to courts to protect social interests of citizens. On the whole, in 2007, public prosecutors submitted over 800,000 lawsuits to court, half of which – in the interests of vulnerable people (retired, minors, disabled, war and labor veterans).
Except for the topic-related speeches of rapporteurs, a meeting of the Bureau and the Working Group of the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors will be held during the Conference where the role of public prosecution in the protection of human rights and public interests outside the criminal law field will be discussed.
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