The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has developed a bill that does not offer to initiate criminal cases on the sale of drugs without proof of their transfer to third parties, as well as without an expert opinion on the name, type and size of the detected substances.

Today, March 22, a public discussion of the relevant document began on the Unified Federal portal of regulatory legal acts. The date for the entry into force of the proposed changes is specified in December 2019.

According to the text, article 146 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CCP) is proposed to be supplemented with part 6. It states that criminal cases of crimes under articles provided for by articles 228.1 and 228.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the illegal sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues) cannot be initiated in the absence of information about the transfer of drugs to others. In addition, the necessary condition for the initiation of such cases will be the conclusions of experts determining the type, size and name of drugs.

The draft law is intended to exclude the unjustified initiation of criminal cases on the facts of illegal sale of drugs in the absence of information about the circumstances of the sale of the substance itself. In addition, the initiative should enhance the effectiveness of the fight against drug trafficking in general.

“Adoption of the draft law will allow to exclude the facts of unconditional unreasonable initiation of criminal cases in the absence of objective indications of the sale of drugs, determination of their type and weight,” the explanatory note indicated.

According to the authors, this will allow more efficient use of the potential of the preliminary investigation authorities in combating crimes in the sphere of illicit drug trafficking.

In addition, the proposed changes will prevent violations of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens - participants in criminal proceedings, the document says.

Ineffective application of procedural measures

In the explanatory note, the Ministry of Internal Affairs points out the problem with the identification of persons who have committed crimes in the sphere of drug trafficking. According to the ministry, a significant number of criminal cases against unidentified drug traffickers are initiated on materials taken from administrative proceedings on the illicit drug use, as well as in cases of overdose death.

Moreover, in both cases the drugs themselves are not withdrawn from the seller, their size and name are not established.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, due to the failure to identify the person to be charged as an accused, in 2018 a preliminary investigation of 72.4 thousand criminal cases was suspended.

“The practice of initiating such criminal cases without a judicial perspective due to insufficient evidence base leads to ineffective application of procedural measures to establish the circumstances of the commission of these crimes and distort statistical data on the results of the fight against crime,” the explanatory note says.

The authors of the document note that the establishment of drug traffickers should be carried out in the course of operational investigative activities.

This work should be organized with “taking into account the fullness of information about the situation in the sphere of illicit drug trafficking in the serviced territory, without waiting for the instructions of investigators in specific criminal cases that have no prospect of being sent to court”.

“Exposing such persons and taking drugs from them will allow them to be brought to criminal responsibility,” the authors of the note summed up.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was necessary to take additional measures on one of the key tasks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - countering drug trafficking in Russia.

“Statistics show that the scale of distribution of the most dangerous - synthetic - drugs is growing. This alarm we must bear in mind, take it into account. We need to take additional measures, because those that are, apparently, are not enough for effective work, ”Putin said in February at the expanded board of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.