President comments on draft law On Technical Regulations in Russia

The preparation of the second reading of a draft law On the Basics of Technical Regulations in the Russian Federation will be carried out with due account for the Russian leader's comments, which he submitted the other day to the State Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian parliament), Anton Danilov-Danilyan, the chief of the presidential economic department, was quoted as saying when addressing on Monday the second all-Russian forum "Authority. Business. Society. New Legal Environment for Russia's Economy." According to him, experts of the presidential economic department and the Duma's committee concerned are already drafting respective amendments to the law taking into account the president's comments. The second reading of the draft law has been scheduled for October.

In the official's words, the president was mainly dissatisfied with the status of technical regulations. At present, the draft envisages that regulations can be enforced by both federal laws and governmental instructions. The president lays emphasis on the fact that in line with both the Constitution and Civil Code these are federal laws alone that can impose restrictions on individual rights and freedoms.

The economic department chief also reported that the Russian leader found it necessary to exclude from the draft a provision on a binding marking of products which was an excessively heavy burden for the Russian business.

The presidential commentary also contains a proposal to facilitate procedures of developing and adopting technical regulations and clearly determine items to be technically regulated. The document also highlights the fact that some of the draft's provisions do not correspond to Russia's Administrative Responsibility Code, Danilov-Danilyan reported.