Anticorruption declaring in Russia: current problems and possible approaches to reforming

The article is devoted to possible directions to improve the information system of revenues, possession and patrimonial obligations by officials and their relatives. It considers history of the introduction of anti-corruption declarations in Russia; analyses the failures of the regulatory approach in use; it researches causes of low efficiency of the presidents decrees implementation; it deals with the problems of under-elaborating the proposed procedure of declaring; it finds out that arrangements of a regular verification of declarations are actually absent. Conclusions and recommendations: the authors believe that we should not put the main functions in the field of anti-corruption declarations on the personnel services. It is expedient to single out three main groups of people who must make declarations: (1) a group of officials; (2) a top group of managers; (3) and the rest of the civil servants. The responsibilities to collect, check and publish declarations, relating to the above mentioned groups, should be useful to line up in the logic of the system checks and balances at the expense of the distribution of these responsibilities between government agencies and the provision of mutual observation between them.The authors do not consider it possible to confine themselves to the recommendations for "building up" the existing system. They suggest returning to the basic procedures of submitting, publishing and checking declarations. They also propose that the corresponding legislation should be thoroughly re-elaborated.The article bases on the report "On the development of anti-corruption declaration in Russia", made in the Scientific Research University, High School of Economics. It also includes results of the report discussions in the course of two round-table conferences, held in August and September of 2012.