On March 13 the Orenburg Regional Legislative Assembly held a Panel Discussion “On legislative safeguards of effective struggle against corruption in the territory of Orenburg region”. Evgeny Bogryakov from the Orenburg office of INGO “Committee Against Torture” was invited as a speaker, although he was not given the floor during the discussion.

The panel discussion was attended by representatives of the Orenburg Regional Interior Ministry, regional prosecutor’s office, Russian Investigative Committee, as well as Legislative Assembly deputies.

Although the problem of corruption is rather multi-faceted, none of the participants tackled the issue of violations committed by investigative authorities in charge of investigation into such crimes. These are, in the first place, the Russian Investigative Committee, Prosecutor’s Office and police. At the same time, the public investigation experience shows that it is impunity of officials which breeds and encourages corruption.

No doubt, a report of the Committee Against Torture representative could be quite useful for all the participants, and though he did not have a chance to speak, he still submitted CAT recommendations aimed at improvement of norms and regulations to fight corruption and promotion of law enforcement authorities’ effectiveness to the Legislative Assembly.