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President Vladimir Putin: Russia is integrating ever more surely into the world economy. Its role in global socio-political and humanitarian processes is increasing from year to year. Your ministry, together with the Foreign Ministry and other bodies, must take an active part in harmonising Russian and international legislation.

One of the top priorities today is legal protection of intellectual property rights. We have discussed this issue many times in relation to the work of the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Justice Ministry. The law enforcement agencies need carefully conceived and effective legal instruments to combat counterfeiting. I think that it is your ministry, the Justice Ministry, that can propose the legal ‘keys’ to solving this problem.

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Coming to another important question, great attention must be paid today to implementing the new law on non-commercial organisations. The Justice Ministry should help draft and adopt a series of sub-legal acts aimed at clearly regulating the creation and registration of non-commercial organisations, including foreign organisations. The main guideline here should be the constitutional provisions on human rights and civil liberties, for this is what defines the sense, substance and application of the laws and the very activity of the legislative authorities and local self-government.

I would like to say a few words about several organisational issues.

New demands are being made today on the Federal Registration Service, above all in connection with the need to bring order to the services it provides to the population, in particular regarding registering property rights and real estate transactions. It must be recognised that the situation in this area is far from satisfactory. The registration procedures still involve too much red tape and are inconvenient for people. At the same time, commercial firms have sprung up around the registration bodies and are doing a thriving business offering people the full range of state-provided services, only for a fee.

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The Federal Corrections Service also has important tasks before it. Effort should be concentrated above all on resolving old problems that still persist. One of the most sensitive of these problems is the conditions in our country’s prisons and detention facilities. Some progress has been made in this respect, and I do note these improvements, but there are still many facilities where those charged with or suspected of crimes are kept in conditions that fall far short of accepted standards.

Another topical issue is the organising of productive work activity in corrections facilities. Only a third of prisoners are currently involved in work activities. I know that a lot has been done in this respect and productive work activity is expanding, but our colleagues who work in this area know that there is still a long way to go. Finally, we must also take steps to raise the level of educational and social work in these facilities in order to help those who have recognised their wrongs to return to normal life and become full members of our society once more.

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As I said in my opening remarks, we have accomplished much over these past years, but there is still a lot of work ahead. I realise that not everything depends on you, but you also need to find in yourselves the necessary determination and purposefulness to fulfil the objectives and resolve the problems facing your ministry.

To take just one example, we have signed the European Convention on Criminal Liability for Corruption. The process of approving this document in order to submit it to the State Duma for ratification has been going on for six years now. Six years!

As I said before, I wish you success in your work. But I also charge the Justice Minister with the task to submit this document as it is today to the Government within the next two weeks so that it can then be introduced to the State Duma for ratification.