The police are paid protection
Lawyers seek to revise rates for the work intended.
As it became known””, law enforcement and judicial authorities in Russia are finally fully repaid during 2016 on the remuneration of solicitors.
The lion’s share of the debt was accounted for by the bodies of inquiry and investigation of the interior Ministry, which at the end of last year have not paid protection $ 700 million.
However, since payments were made through the budget of the following year, the defenders already at the beginning of the summer, expect new problems with payments, especially as rates of solicitors can increase several times.
Federal chamber of advocates of the Russian Federation (FPA RF), “Kommersant” reported that the debt to the defenders, who worked as intended in 2016, has finally been almost fully repaid. According to representatives of the Federal chamber of lawyers of the Russian Federation, now received only few reports from the regional chambers, which are not paid in full. Last protect their interests in the courts giving class action suits against debtors.
As previously reported by “Kommersant”, the critical situation with the lawyers that work for the purpose, was developed in the recent years, but it became urgent last year when it was already on strikes private law entities whose employees were driven to despair by the lack of payments.
In 2015, the debt enforcement and judicial authorities, inviting lawyers for clients who were not able themselves to pay for the labor defenders, made 210,8 million rubles In mid-2016, the debt has grown to 519,4 mln.
A large part of the debt was owed by organs of inquiry and investigation, Ministry of internal Affairs of the Russian Federation — RUB 406 million Debt, including Federal and magistrates ‘ courts, was 93.1 million rubles, the Investigative Committee 13.1 million rubles., and on the other law enforcement agencies accounted for only 7.2 million RUB.
Very difficult the situation became in the end of last year, when the debts of the Ministry of interior has reached astronomical amount — $ 700 million. thus, the largest non-payment of the lawyers were registered by them in Bashkiria, Krasnoyarsk region, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow regions and St. Petersburg.
It should be noted that in the registry of the Federal chamber are approximately 78 thousand lawyers, of which about 72 thousand have the status active. At least 40 thousand representation to destination is the main and sometimes only source of income.
In Russia now there is a single rate of remuneration of the advocate for appointment, which is 550 rubles per day. It can be increased in some cases depending on the complexity of the criminal case or work in remote areas, but still does not exceed 1100 RUB. in Total, by estimations of experts of the Federal chamber, annually appointed counsel receive about 3.8 to 3.9 billion RUB Their strike and refusal to take investigative actions or court could paralyze the entire law enforcement system.
MIA quickly enough reacted to the situation. The decision was made on repayment of debt due to the sophisticated resources of 294 million rubles last year, and the remaining money was paid in 2017 due to the new budget.
Now virtually no debts, but the payment issue will not go away
Recently was held the VIII all-Russian Congress of lawyers, one of the main themes of which was the payment of solicitors.
“There is an illogical situation in which the amount of charge of a payment of a lawyer participating in the defenders in the pretrial stage of the process, as well as payment of his accrued amounts depend on the will of officials, to which defense counsel opposed the procedural dispute”, — stated in the decision of the Congress. This indicates that the amount of payment of appointed counsel order of magnitude less than the normal current market, and therefore is a serious obstacle to ensure “adequate protection”. The base rate is 550 rubles for a day’s work is not indexed over the years. In addition, advocates are outraged that last year’s debts were repaid due to the budget 2017. “It turns out that payments crisis last year actually planned by the state in the middle of this year”, — is told in the decision of the Congress.
Another problem, according to the Federal chamber of lawyers of the Russian Federation is the activity of so-called pocket lawyers, which attracted officials for investigation. Lawyers believe that in such cases where an appropriate representation of the interests of the clients are not kept, signed the protocols on non-existent investigation, and the money investigators shared with counsel, it is necessary to qualify the actions of their colleagues as complicity in the theft of budget funds, and the actions of the investigators themselves — as official misconduct.
In this regard, Congress has proposed a number of measures to remedy the situation. First increase the base rate of pay for the work and counsel with up to 3 550 RUB. thousand RUB for a day or go to an hourly fee at the rate of 700 rubles per hour. This bet offered to index once a year with reference to the consumer price index or to minimum wage. The defenders asked the authorities to stop the practice of creating debt and repay it at the expense of future budgets and pay everything on time, which by law is only 30 days, but everywhere is not maintained. Separately, lawyers are asked to identify a single body responsible for ensuring payment for the work of solicitors.
By the way, previously, all departments had their budgets as a separate line paying for legal services, but in 2013, when there were chronic delays in payments, the money began to refer to the total weight of the expenses.
In the press center of the interior Ministry, “Kommersant” said that now the Ministry of Finance “is working on the draft of the Federal law” on amendments to the budget in 2017 and the planned period 2018-2019.
Upon completion of this work will be decided on further financing of expenses on payment of labor advocatesthe the press center of the Ministry of internal Affairs
Sergey Sergeev