Additional guarantees for businesses: legislative reforms may become more predictable

An annual growth in the number of legal acts, especially in the sphere of business, is one aspect of the contemporary Russian lawmaking process. In order for businessmen to have the opportunity to react to reforms and avoid administrative liability for not complying with laws in a timely manner, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation proposed an interim period and fixed dates for enforcing legislation pertaining to business.

Available for public discussion on the Uniform portal for posting information about the development of draft regulations, the proposed law titled On the Amendments to the federal law of 14 June 1994, no. 5-F3, “On the procedure of publication and entry into force of federal constitutional laws, federal laws, and acts of the Federal Assembly” offers fixed dates for when laws concerning business and other economic activities come into force: “either 1 April or 1 October but no earlier than six months after the date of their official publication.” If adopted, the draft law will enter into force on 1 January 2016.

According to the authors of the draft, this mechanism will reduce the frequency of legal changes and amendments, enabling businessmen to plan their activities more effectively and to implement long-term projects. They also contend that, with fixed dates for enforcing new legislation, the business community will have enough time to adapt to the constantly changing regulations, and the implementation of legal acts will become more predictable for businessmen. The deputy minister of economic development, Oleg Fomichev, explained that “having the first days of the second and fourth quarters as the dates of entry are intentional so that there is no correlation with 1 January and so the dates are spaced evenly throughout the year.” He explained that the draft law does not apply to changes in tax legislation.

Lawyers and businessmen generally are in favor of these amendments. In particular, the co-chair of Business Russia, Anton Danilov-Danilyan, noted that, since the Russian legislation is changing at a breakneck speed, semiannual postponement is necessary to give businesses time to make whatever adjustments are necessary.  He added that regularizing the implementation of legislation is beneficial to the ministries as well since they will have time to develop the appropriate regulations.  Danilov-Danilyan considered a delay for presidential decrees as unnecessary. Such decrees, he stated, “are created so that decisions can address a situation immediately. I do not see many possibilities for abuse here.”

The authors of the project pointed out that France, Lithuania, UK, and some other countries already have incorporated such mechanisms into their legislation in order to improve business planning.

The text of the draft and an explanatory note to it can be found here.