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«Public Administration Issues» Journal,

Post. address:
National Research University
Higher School of Economics
20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow 101000, Russian Federation
Location address:
of. 307, 4/2, Slavyanskaya sq., Moscow 109074, Russian Federation

Tel./fax: 7 (495) 772-95-90, ext. 12631

E-mail: vgmu@hse.ru 

 

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Research and educational journal
Published quarterly since 2007
ISSN 1999-5431
E-ISSN 2409-5095

S. Pchelintsev

Legal Regulation of the Lobbyists Activity: Canadian approaches

2008. No. 3. P. 74–81 [issue contents]

Resistance and counteraction to the bureaucracy corruption is one of the directions of the government reform. It is complex work having many aspects. It embraces different ingredients of the state policy each of which needs close considering and comprehensive discussing. In this respect researching such a phenomenon as lobbyism, which is being much discussed nowadays, is of great interest. Different opinions have been expressed on the necessity to work out the project “Federal Lobbying Law”, its content, including legal norms to prevent a conflict of interests, caused by lobbyists’ activity. Serious attention is being paid to the Canadian practice of legal provision and control of the lobbyists’ activity in connection with the Russian-Canadian project on promoting “State Government Reforms in the Russian Federation”. Some materials of the project were used to write this article. Basing on the analysis of the data and information given in the article, the author makes the following conclusions:

1. As it follows from the” National Plan of Counteracting to the Bureaucracy Corruption”, the Normative Legal Act regulating the lobbyist activity in the R.F. should take into account interests of the political parties, social groups, juridical and physical persons, when Federal Acts or Acts of the subjects of the Russian Federation or some other normative acts may be made. To use this approach in practice, considering that it is quite new and innovative to the Russian Legal System, is necessary to study the existing practice of controlling and managing the lobbyist activity.

2. Different suggestions on developing “The Federal regulation of lobbying act”, including suggestions how corruption should be defeated, need comprehensive assessing, with foreign experience being thoroughly analyzed and used.

3. The major principles of the Canadian Lobbying Acts are as follows:

– operation of a single common registration system for both business lobbyists and nonprofit organizations lobbyists.

– lobbyists are obliged to make reports of all money received and paid by them for the purpose of influencing legislation on the basis of free and open access to the government offices.

– The purpose of the “Regulation Lobbying Act” implementation is to inform the large public about the names and aims of those who seek to influence the government authorities. For this purpose the Public Registry System which exists in Canada requires lobbyists (in each lobbying case) to register with the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate to state the names and addresses of the persons employing them and the amount of salary and expense they receive.

– What lobbyists are to do is defined by the “undertaking” on the basis of a contract or agreement either in written or oral form.

– All in all, the main task of the Lobbying Legislation is to provide the public at large with information about open, transparent activity of lobbyists and to prevent conflicts of interests between government officials who are influenced by lobbyists.

4. The fact that Canada elaborates and considers the mentioned in the article legislation proposals on making demands to lobbyists tougher proves that the civil society in the country regards the existing laws and their implementation in the field of lobbyism with some doubt. This should be taken into account when conceptual provisions of the fundamentally new Russian lobbying legislation are worked out.

Citation: Pchelintsev S. V. (2008) Pravovoe regulirovanie lobbistskoy deyatel'nosti: kanadskie podkhody [Legal Regulation of the Lobbyists Activity: Canadian approaches] Public Administration Issues, 3, pp. 74-81 (in Russian)
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ISSN 1999-5431
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