As I’ve said many times, the vote on ratifying Article 20 on the Russian Public Initiative website is only the first step in our campaign. The next stage we have planned is to get a comment from every State Duma deputy on how they feel about introducing the concept of illicit enrichment into our Criminal Code.
We have already sent 443 letters to State Duma deputies asking them to state their position on ratifying Article 20 of the UN Convention against Corruption.
So far, 11 deputies have replied to us. Ten of them support the introduction of Article 20; one of them, Mikhail Moiseyev, forwarded our appeal to Deputy Yarovaya, who appears on our website as one of the examples of illicit enrichment. So the deputy turned out to have a sense of humor.
Ivan Ivanovich Melnikov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation even wrote us an angry open letter, basically saying: stop bothering us, we support ratification of Article 20 even without your prompting. Excellent — that suits us just fine.
Since, obviously, some deputies will not want to respond, we have launched a phone campaign targeting deputies together with *Novaya Gazeta* (an independent Russian newspaper).
A journalist will call each of them and ask a simple question: what is their view on ratifying Article 20 of the UN Convention and on fighting illicit enrichment?
Many deputies try to wriggle out of giving a direct answer, but we will be persistent: we will not stop until we fill out this “State Duma Map,” showing each deputy’s position.
We will compile and circulate specific quotes both for and against. It will look like this:
Sergey Mironov is very much in favor. We will clarify whether this is the consolidated position of his faction, and then we will “color in” A Just Russia’s seats on our Duma map.
In addition, we are carefully reviewing the press in search of statements by our deputies assessing the effectiveness of Article 20. For example, Boris Reznik, in response to an inquiry from Arguments and Facts, said that he fully supports ratification.
As you can see, even some members of United Russia fully support ratification of Article 20 and the fight against illicit enrichment.
No one in Russia has done anything like this before, even though it is a common element of public advocacy campaigns around the world. We’ll be the first.
We’ll keep you updated on our progress, and in the meantime, help us where we are powerless without you: the vote. We need 100,000 votes. So far we have 58,000 — vote yourself, and bring in votes from friends, acquaintances, and relatives.