President Vladimir Putin forwarded the European Covenant specifying criminal liability for corruption to the Duma. Ratification of the Covenant will require amendment of the acting legislation including the Criminal Code and Procedural Criminal Code. As a matter of fact, a special article dealing with corruption may appear in the Criminal Code.

Adopted in Strasbourg on January 27, 1999, the Covenant was signed by the then Interior Minister Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin that very day. Russia has never ratified it. The reason is simple and boils down to the lengthy interdepartmental debates over whether or not amendments of the legislation are required (and what amendments exactly if yes). Thirty-two countries are participants of the Covenant. Fifteen more signed it but not yet ratified.

Yevgeny Zabarchuk, State Secretary and Deputy Justice Minister, will represent the president the course of ratification of the document in the Federal Assembly.

"The Covenant includes several important legal instruments that will boost effectiveness of the war on corruption," Zabarchuk said. "We are talking the mechanisms of international cooperation in the financial sphere, in personnel training, and in joint investigation."

The Covenant includes the provision that permits the countries where it was ratified to cooperate against corruption even without bilateral accords on legal assistance.

Ratification of the document will require certain amendments in the Criminal Code and Procedural Criminal Code and other standard acts.

"We will set up a special task group to draw the necessary amendments," Zabarchuk said. "The task group will have to decide what world standards of the war on corruption are applicable for Russia. Still, it will be done only after ratification."