.
It is known that to make a revolution, no divisions are required. Two tens of devoted men on TV will be quite enough. The famous American expert on coups – Ambassador Perifua – made the following witty remark: “The Czecho-Slovak revolution is the first revolution made by television”.
The critical attitude of the law enforcement bodies to published materials is known. But it is interesting that during the Penza survey each fifth citizen drew attention to the mass media bias with regard to the militia.
4. Ways of Mutual Confidence and Cooperation Strengthening. Recommendations
1. The creation of a normative (legal) base where the rights and obligations of the public and the militia would be balanced in their interaction.
2. The creation of a normative (legal) base providing the best possible conditions for citizens to interact with the police.
3. The creation of a normative (legal) base which would aim the police to establishment of some preferable conditions for law-obedient citizens ascompared to law-disobeying ones. In procedural branches of law the subjective rights to preserve justice should be unequal.
4. The creation of a normative (legal) base which ensure the legal interests of persons cooperating with the justice anonymously on the one side, and on the other side the use of information obtained from them in criminal proceedings.
5. The creation of a social and psychological atmosphere promoting the efficient activity of the police.
6. To restore the available mechanisms and to work out any new ones for the registration and considerations of public claims against militia men in accordance with the recommendations of the UNO Economic and Social Council. To inform the public widely on the existence of such mechanisms[522].
7. To bring the scheduled militia staff into line with the requirements of the objective law of the scheduled staff. The scheduled staff to be assigned should conform to the possibilities of the environment of functioning in selection of a required number of individuals with appropriate personal traits. And the police body should be able to provide for these persons.
8. To bring the qualification requirements to different categories of militia men into conformity with the same law.
9. To turn a duty police division from a repelling border to a place for attraction of the public to cooperation with the militia. To introduce the part «Contacts with Citizens» into the program of training of duty groups.
10. To bring the most skilled and trained militia men out of their offices to a street closer to the public.
11. To prepare Instructions for interaction with the public. To introduce there in addition to the general data some sections related to the activity of different services of the law enforcement bodies.
12. To introduce the program of training in skills of communication with the public, nhigh skills to respect a man, at all levels of personnel training and retraining[523]. A particular attention is to be paid at initial training of militia men. To introduce appropriate addenda into syllabus of retraining and qualification improvement courses for militia top-managers.
13. A special complex course is required for higher and secondary special educational institutions of the RF MIA.
14. To elaborate a manual on The Militia (Police) Interaction with the Public.
15. To optimize the training of militia men in communicating with the public, to use the Human Rights courses which are studied today in higher schools of the RF MIA.
16. To translate into Russian the best normative documents and references on the police and public interaction from any available ones in the West-Europe, USA, Islam states, Japanese and Israel.
17. To establish a laboratory on problems of the interaction with the public at one of the research institutes or higher schools of the RF MIA. (Along with RL-7 of the ARRIoftheRFMIA.)
18. To elaborate the mechanism for consideration of public opinion in appointment and transfer of militia men who come in close official contacts with public.
19. To elaborate a mechanism for public recommendation of citizens for work in the militia.
20. To recommend the RF MIA to carry out an experiment in election of the head of militia departments and militia officers by the public in rural districts and in small settlements with stable permanent residents.
21. As an experiment to elaborate a mechanism for expression of public distrust to militia men. To prepare a list of positions to be covered by its action. I think it is reasonable to introduce employers of the Public Security Militia and the managers of the both militias.
22. To recommend the Legal Provision Department of the RF MIA to revise the draft Law on Public Participation in Maintenance of Law and Order and to base iton the conception of the relations between the public and its police.
23. To think over the matter on the establishment of an association for protection of persons suffered from crimes with use of possibilities of the consumer right protection service.
Law on the Public Participation in Maintenance of Law and Order
The draft law has been prepared by the working group of the State Duma with active participation of the Legal Provision Department of the RF MIA. I shall not conceal that I also took part in its elaboration. However I failed to overcome the inertia of the majority. Except for some norms the draft appeared to be similar to the improved Provision on volunteer public order squads (DND in Russian).
But I think that this draft law should be based on the conception of the legal provision of the activity of a law-obedient citizen who represses an offence or protects itself, its relatives in case of conflict with an encroaching disobedient person.
Apparently this topic requires a special detailed discussion. So 1 only refer anyone concerned to the publication (13, 18–23) specified in the list of the preprint.
The attention to a law-abiding citizen is a priority for the Nizhny Novgorod school of lawyers which I have an honour to represent today.