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THE PROJECT: "PUBLIC
EXPERTISE: AUTHORITY - SOCIETY - MEDIA"
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The essence of the project is the creation of system of large-scale
support of the Russian authority from a civil society with
the aim to promote the operation effectiveness of the gov-ernmental
institutes on all levels.
The project organizers are trying to estimate the governmental
authorities from the viewpoint of the society, using as the
counting point the following features of the authorities:
effectiveness, openness, aiming on the socially significant
result.
Overall objective of the project is the attempt to create
the complete picture of the Rus-sian authorities' activity
and to supply the society with the mechanism of the civil
control on the governing bodies.
The urgency of the project is related with the fact, that
governmental authorities in Rus-sia are isolated from the
society, they are closed and non-transparent, and with the
fact that the institutes of the civil society are not developed
in general in Russia.
The project is directed on the event instance of the "Open
Russia" charter and assistance for the liberal &
democratic reforms in Russian Federation, aimed to create
in Russia the open civil so-ciety and democratic lawful state.
One of the main project tasks is the assistance in the distribu-tion
of the legal and social knowledge among Russian citizens,
promoting to form for citizens of the Russian Federation of
modern representations about a lawful state.
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MAIN DIRECTIONS OF ACTIVITY:
1. PUBLIC EXPERTISE OF JUDICIAL AUTHORITY
Main parameters and criteria, used in research of judicial authorities
are the independency, accessibility and effectiveness of the courts.
The researches are conducted in all regions of Russian Federation.
Five basic methods of research are used in the process.
The judicial statistic research helps to establish the percentage
of suits quantity on legal acts appeals, officials' actions, left
without legal satisfaction. The "Public Expertise" discovers
the ability of citizens, living in different Russian regions, to
stand up for their interests in courts in cases of conflicts with
local authorities. The second groups of problems that can be determined
by means of judicial statistic research are the legal procrastinations,
breach of deadlines for cases determination in courts. This problem
usually turns into the overcrowded chambers in investigatory insulators
and into the amount of thousand people, whose fault is not proved
yet, for years expecting the court trial.
Trying to fight the procrastination, the courts are going to different
extremes: they examine the cases by simplified procedure, individually,
without presence of public assessors and jurors. The percentage
of such individual examinations, especially in criminal cases, is
one of the alarming indexes of judicial statistic.
The included observation is the important additional method of
analysis in the given research. The journals of the observers, stating
all the circumstances of judicial procedures in all regions of Russian
Federation are the important illustrative addendums to the judicial
statistic figures.
The analysis of the financing sources is the third method of research.
In accordance with the article 124 of the Russian Constitution,
the "…financing of courts is made only from the federal budget
…" The primal research showed that the courts of St.-Petersburg
city, Altai, Stavropol, Kamchatka, Vologda, Leningrad, Lypetzk and
many other Russian regions, receiving the sufficient part of the
financing from the local regional authorities, puts themselves in
the position of the deliberate suspects in serving the interest
of local executive power and legislature.
The expert poll devoted to the current condition of the Russian
judicial system and prospects of its development. The poll of 500
experts, divided into 6 categories (judges, attorneys, court reporters,
law-scientists, practicing lawyers and representatives of executive
powers' legal departments) supposed to give the integral picture
of experts' consciousness, describing the openness, independence
and effectiveness of judicial power in Russia and to uncover the
main problem points of this part of state power.
The court precedents analysis is based on publications in federal
and regional media. It is planned to name the nominees for the "Golden
Femida" (for independence and principality) and "Black
Femida" (for breach of law by the judges) awards, basing on
this analysis and results of the expert poll.
The additional method is the Test informational inquiry, used as
the criteria for judicial power openness.
2. PUBLIC EXPERTISE OF REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORITY
The project includes the analysis of activity of State Duma Deputies,
members of Council of Federation and deputies of regional legislative
assemblies.
The analysis is based on 6 main methods:
1. The content analysis of shorthand reports of plenary sessions
from State Duma and Council of Federation.
2. The analysis of the roll-call votes of State Duma deputies
and Council of Federation members on socially significant bills.
3. The test informational inquiries send to State Duma deputies,
legislative assemblies of Russian Federation regions and Council
of Federation members.
4. The analysis of media activity of State Duma deputies and
Council of Federation members based on the informational system
"Medialogia" data.
5. The expert poll devoted to the activity effectiveness of federal
representative authorities (State Duma and Council of Federation).
6. The expert poll devoted to the activity effectiveness of Russian
regional legislative powers.
The content analysis of the shorthand reports shows the level
of deputy activities, the activity characteristic (correlation of
legislative and political activity), emphasizes the most typical
political and socially important propositions.
The analysis of the roll-call votes gives the opportunity to create
the real political portraits of each deputy, deputy groups and factions
opposite to those propaganda images, created by politicians and
their opponents during the election campaigns.
The analysis of the media activity is the index defining the level
of politicians' publicity, his importance for media and also his
aspiration for the public political activity.
The expert polls are the tools of activity effectiveness measurement
for representatives of federal and regional legislative bodies.
The main task for this tool is the establishment of the activity
result data of each deputy, which can be fixed in minds of the expert
society both on federal and regional level.
The aim of this part of project is to promote the overcoming of
the deepest crisis of the representative democracy in Russia. The
idea of the project is to join together researching, law-defending
and media resources.
The intermediate and final results of the researches are published
in central and regional media. It promotes the creation of public
opinion on representative power activities, not on the propaganda.
It also has to assist the overcoming of main reason for crisis of
representative democracy crisis in Russia: the independence of the
representative power from the civil society.
During 2004 the analysis on the IV State Duma deputies and members
of Council of Federation was made, the system of monitoring on activity
analysis of State Duma deputies and members of Council of Federation
was created, and also the methodology and toolkit for research on
activity of the legislative bodies deputies in 89 Russian regions
was created.
3. PUBLIC EXPERTISE OF EXECUTIVE POWER
The analysis of the effectiveness of executive power has both
federal and regional aspects. The subjects of the public expertise
are the members of Russian Government (the Ministers, heads of Federal
Services and Agencies), heads of regional administrative bodies
and heads of regional executive power bodies (regional Ministers).
8 research methods are used as the analysis tools:
a) Social-economical statistics analysis, defining the current
condition and dynamics of those indexes, showing the development
of the corresponding branch or region;
b) Analysis of managing activities (main edicts and instructions),
defining the head's style, main forms, methods and effectiveness
of its activity;
c) Analysis of staff policy of the head;
d) Expert poll of 500 experts (both federal and regional);
e) Analysis of executive power member's media activity, defining
the level of their openness, publicity and correlation of information
and propaganda in their publications and performances;
f) The test informational inquiry from media, which helps to
determine the level of maintenance of legal rights of citizens
to obtain the information;
g) The test registration by previous appointment in order to
solve the legal demands of citizens;
h) Test interpellations to the heads of executive power bodies
in regions on socially important questions for the citizens.
4. PUBLIC EXPERTISE OF CIVIL SOCIETY
This part of enquiry is a reflexive by itself. The civil society
explores itself for it's own effectiveness, for uncovering of the
most efficient and weak elements.
Main research methods:
- expert poll;
- mass poll;
- the analysis on media activity.
BASIS OF EFFICIENCY OF THE PROJECT
The project is based on joint use of the researching, law-defending,
civil and media technologies.
The research and analytical technologies allows obtaining the objective,
scientifically based results.
The law-defending and civil projects approach stating that its
ideology comes out of the priority of personal citizens interests
before the interests of the social institute, including state. The
authors of the project are always standing on the side of the person
in its conflict with the state.
The media technologies always demand extremely clear, accessible
forms of the statement of the purposes, methods and results of the
project, because the project itself from the very first minutes
of it's realization is not just having the powerful media accompaniment,
but almost submersed into the sphere of media. The project methodology
includes the test informational media inquiries, publications in
media as the reaction of authorities on the test, etc
METHODOLOGY OF THE PROJECT
The methodology of the project is based on 6 principles:
1. Verification principles. All resumes and opinions used in
the project are based on the statistics and documental confirmed
figures and facts, also displayed in the given project.
2. Personality principle. The analysis of authorities starts
from analysis of it's activity bearers, from the comparison of
them on the basis of the efficiency, quality of work and final
estimation.
3. Principle of comparison and quantitative estimation. Russia
is the most heterogeneous country in the world. It concerns both
distinctions between standards of living and human rights in regions,
which differ from each other more than the various countries of
the Europe, and distinctions in a level of performance of the
duties of authority. If one official works better, another is
worse, and it means that it is possible to measure these distinctions
quantitatively and to present them in the form of the rating table
which allows to assess each carrier of authority.
4. Principle of "extra". For research of such complex
object as the Russian authority, it is always not enough to use
one method - the mass poll or a content-analysis. In this case
the result turns out as "flat", and conclusions are
banal. Therefore the "Public Expertise" uses a few different
methods and sometimes an unexpected result comes out from the
comparison.
5. Principle of openness and a feedback. The project has a complex
character, combining features of strict academic research in that
refers to validity of conclusions, or a research technique aiming
on wide publication of results not only in scientific, but also
first of all in mass media. From here comes the sixth and last
principle:
6. Principle of "reputation" technologies. A "problem
of a century" of inefficiency of the Russian authority includes
the absence of institute of reputation. The thief and the idler
may borrow for years the official governing position and then
he receives the promotion.
The "reputation" technologies are based on corporate
public or civil estimations of activity of everyone, and represents
the social elevator, starting from the buttons. After pushing the
button "good reputation" - the lift should go upwards,
after "the bad reputation" - the lift goes downwards.
The project "Public Expertise" is expected on research
of all three branches of authority: executive, legislative and judicial,
both on federal, and on the regional level.
THE RESEARCH BLOCK
The objects of research are the activities of deputies of the State
Duma and legislative assemblies of Russian Federation regions, members
of Council of Federation, the Government of the Russian Federation,
the President of the Russian Federation and its Administration,
activity of courts of the general jurisdiction and arbitration courts
of regions of the Russian Federation.
The research methodology includes:
· carrying out of monthly poll on the all-Russian sample, aiming
to receive reaction and the attitude of citizens to actions
of authorities in the current month;
· the analysis of the shorthand reports, allowing to obtain
quantitative data concerning legislative and political activity
of deputies of the State Duma and members of Council of Federation,
and also the analysis of the roll-call votes, allowing to reveal
their positions in relation to the most significant problems
of their voters and regions;
· the media activity analysis of each of 1000 representatives
of the politically-forming class of Russia: 450 deputies of
the State Duma, 178 members of Council of Federation, members
of the Government of the Russian Federation, the President and
the highest officials of its Administration, etc.
· the analysis of judicial authority by 4 criteria - independence,
openness, availability, the status - is conducted on the basis
of following methods:
a. test claims on problems of ZKH (housing and communal services)
in regional courts;
b. test inquiries of socially significant judgments and information
on sources of financing of courts, the sizes of the salary
of judges;
c. test passes to halls of courts;
d. expert polls of judges, deputies, journalists, scientific,
lawyers;
e. analysis of judicial statistics.
· analysis of activity of executive authority on branches and
regions.
Basing on results of each month the analytical report, which materials
are widely published in the central and regional press, is prepared
and distributed among all bodies of the government.
MEDIA BLOCK
The project is focused on participation of journalists, as on
the research stage, including such methods as journalistic investigation,
the organization of test inquiries of mass-media, and also on stages
of the publication of all results of research, which have essentially
open and public character.
Without bringing in of the journalists specializing on work with
legislative and executive authorities and without attracting the
court reporters to this work, the fulfillment of expert polls is
impossible.
The important section of the project is: the analysis of publicity
and openness of authority is conducted on the basis of information
resource «Medialogia», meaning the analysis of quantity of mentioning
of the politician or the statesman in 1000 central and regional
mass-media, taking into account the tonality (positive - neutral
- negative) and a level of citing of them in various media.
The journalists and media play the main role in realization of
the third block of the project based on “reputation” technologies.
REPUTATION BLOCK
One of the main or, probably, the most important problem of Russia
is absence of institute of reputation. The institute of reputation
can be presented in the form of fraction, in which numerator of
which are included positive estimations, kind business, effective
work, professionalism, and in a denominator - negative estimations,
organized crime, idleness and an inefficiency.
In economically developed countries with the democratic regimes
the institutes of reputation is the same attribute of a daily life
as the electricity and the water pipe.
In business relations it is a credit history, without which no
transaction could be done, on the labor market it is a system of
qualifying estimations and recommendations from the last places
of work, etc.
The reputation technologies work and turn on “the social elevator”,
if there is a corresponding infrastructure. The “Public Expertise”
clubs are such means of infrastructure in our current project.
The “Public Expertise” Club is created as the regional research
center which is carrying out preliminary gathering of the information
on activity of representatives of authority in region, and also
the preliminary analysis of this information. The club includes
the most authoritative representatives of a civil society, journalists
and heads of media, legal experts, scientists and public figures.
The structure of each club includes: the expert who prepares the
analytical materials for sessions of the Club, the Chairman and
other members.
At monthly sessions of “PE” club the report on activity of one
or several politicians or officials of region is presented. On the
basis of the data received as a result of “PE”, the supporting club
report is prepared, expressing all wishes and estimations.
Sessions of the Club are publicly open, including wide participation
of journalists and TV. On the basis of club work the TV program
or a heading in the leading newspaper can be prepared.
Final session of regional club considers examines results of activity
of all branches of authority for a year and hands over prizes to
the politicians or officials who are most effective and useful for
region and also "anti-prizes" to the most inefficient
ones: to deputies of the State Duma, members of Council of Federation,
judges, regional ministers, etc.
Delivery of prizes occurs publicly with presence of journalists
and TV. The final report goes to the Head of Administration of the
region of the Russian Federation, to legislative assembly and to
Chairman of regional or republican court.
The “Public Expertise” Institute
General Director Igor YAKOVENKO
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