our experience in lawmaking
How we are trying to take part in the legislative process, how these attempts are broken about the officials of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and why even the good initiatives of the authorities turn into profanation.
One of the favorite toys of the Russian authorities in recent years is the “regulatory impact assessment” (RIA): when you measure seven times, cut once, one head is good, and two is better, and other integration of folk wisdom into the process of public administration.
RIA, indeed, is a good idea, but, as often happens, the most wonderful idea is worn out at the stage of implementation by the domestic bureaucracy, about which Radishchev warned us, although Du Custine’s remark is closer to me: each of them [мелких чиновников] performs his duties with an air of pedantic, strict and important, designed to inspire respect for the most meaningless of occupations
So, almost 10 years ago, the Russian Government adopted Resolution No. 1318 “On the procedure for conducting federal executive authorities assessing the regulatory impact of draft regulatory legal acts …”, providing, in particular, public discussion of these projects (we remember: measure seven times – and two is better).
How does it work in practice? For example, Roskomnadzor publishes draft Requirements for the electronic form for sending applications from Russian citizens and organizations – in the development of the story about “foreign persons operating on the Internet on the territory of the Russian Federation”. We can leave a sparkling comment on the project – paper PDF will endure everything, but we can, following the example of Solomon Davidovich, try to distinguish what we can change from the rest, and make constructive proposals.
Our constructive proposal was that it is necessary to formulate more precisely the requirements for the form of appeal, not giving insidious foreign persons the legal right to collect an excessive amount of personal data of honest Russians. Our proposal was “partially considered” and one line in the Requirements was changed.
It was:
– contact details of the applicant, including email address;
Became:
– contact information (phone number, email address or postal address);
I still don’t like the wording, but it is better than the previous one, and my opinion is not the ultimate truth. In general, not an example of civil society participation in lawmaking, but also not a smoker’s reaction, which we will soon get to, but for now an excerpt from Resolution No. 1318:
20. The developer is obliged to consider all proposals received on time in connection with the public discussion of the draft act and the summary report, compile a summary of proposals with indication of information about their accounting or reasons for rejection and no later than 20 working days from the date of the end of the public discussion period, post it on the official website.
Now –
the reaction of a patient with stage 4 lung cancer with metastases
assessment of the regulatory impact in the implementation of the Ministry of Finance. On August 16, the ministry publishes
On September 3, his public discussion ends, 20 working days pass and … we see an interesting picture.
The project received 15 reviews, 13 of which received the status “not taken into account”. Those. VimpelCom, Megafon, MTS, Rostelecom, the RSPP Commission on Communications and Information and Communication Technologies and your humble servant wrote some nonsense that, according to the Ministry of Digital Science, does not deserve the slightest attention.
And what then 2 reviews were “taken into account”, you ask? Here they are (deserve to be reproduced in full):
1. Will the adoption of the draft normative legal act affect the expenditure obligations of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation?
The adoption of the draft regulation will not affect the expenditure obligations of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
Considered2. What benefits and advantages could arise if the proposed regulation is adopted?
there are none
Considered
Objectivity requires me to assume that I wrote complete nonsense in the review, and the reviews of the largest market players turned out to be no better, but then, about the digital guru, open your innermost knowledge to the unenlightened – explain where we were wrong, as required by the law! Alas, the guru has some more interesting things to do, he has no time for a summary of proposals.
But I have time to read accompanying the project “Consolidated Statement of Regulatory Act”, which, among other things, discloses the name guru responsible for the development of the project: Likhachev Alexander Vasilievich, position – specialist. It was not possible to find out what exactly he is a specialist in, but let’s try to guess based on the data of the same Consolidated Report, read on.
“International experience in the respective fields of activity: none”. Seriously, there is no international experience in regulating communication services for data transmission, a specialist tells you this. He also estimates the number of participants in regulated legal relations (telecom operators) as “about 5000”. I looked out the window and offhand it seemed that there were about five thousand telecom operators in Russia. Although it could have been easier – to request Roskomnadzor data, according to which there are more than 29,000 valid licenses for communication services in Russia, of which almost 8,000 are for communication services for data transmission. But the specialist of the Ministry of Digital Science, of course, knows better.
I still have one question, specifically – to Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Digital Deputy Minister of Digital Development Dmitry_Oguryaev. Dmitry, I understand that this is not your competence, you are more and more on architecture issues Matrices and other lofty matters, but on the other hand – the second person in the ministry. So this is what I mean: your call to comment and criticize the draft Business Monitoring Standard from the Ministry – is it also about SimBurDu or is it about ODS?
