The President of the Constitutional Court of Russia, Valeri Zorkin, supported the mechanism of corruption proceedings without a statute of limitations initiated by the prosecutor’s office, becoming one of the main tools for redistributing property in Russia. These actions have fueled a wave of de-privatizations and nationalizations.
In a report dedicated to the 35 years of existence of the Constitutional Court, Zorkin invoked a decision of the court from October 2024, in which corruption was defined as a “constitutional crime” — a violation that threatens the very foundations of the state order.
According to the Court’s position, corruption is not merely a violation of the law, but it weakens the functioning of the Constitution and legislation, undermines trust in the state, and constitutes a threat to the country’s sovereignty.
Zorkin believes that these anti-corruption processes initiated by the prosecutor’s office should not be subject to the usual prescription terms. According to him, the standard limits of three or ten years do not take into account the hidden nature and the ability to conceal corruption schemes. For this reason, the possibility of initiating such processes should remain unlimited in time.
The statement comes in the context of discussions regarding the limitation of terms in deprivatization cases. After a meeting between Vladimir Putin and representatives of the business environment, the authorities began to examine a bill that sets a maximum term of ten years for disputes over the recovery of privatized assets, writes The Bell.
However, the project contains a significant exception: the restrictions will not apply to anti-corruption processes, extremism cases, and disputes regarding the violation of rules for holding strategic enterprises. These categories have become, in recent years, the main reasons invoked for the takeover of significant assets.
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