GIFTS FOR A PUBLIC SERVANT: WHETHER IT IS WORTH TO COMPLY WITH THE RULES

Abstract

The article substantiates the expediency to distinguish a kind of “gift relations in the public service” – “gift relations with the participation of close persons of a public servant.” The author draws attention to the specificity of the subjects of the relevant relations, which is a public servant (a person empowered to exercise the functions of the state or local self-government and “serve” for a public interest) and close persons of the public servant (persons connected with the public servant by means of family, friendly relations) A gift in these relations differs by peculiarity because it is oriented solely to the person of a public servant, and not to his professional activities, his special legal status. Its presentation does not imply any influence on the “purity” of the professional activities of a public servant. In view of this, it is inappropriate to consider the normative consolidation of the appropriate “personal” (it is also called “private”, “ordinary”, “normal”) gift to requirements for cost, grounds, the periodicity of receiving. At the same time, despite the specifics of “gift relations with the participation of a public servant,” they cannot remain outside the regulatory framework. Such regulation allows strengthening the foundations of determinacy in the “gift policy” of the state and eliminating the grounds for use of “gifts from close persons” as a means of “indirect” influence, including inappropriate, on the professional activities of public servants or concealment of unjust enrichment of the latter. The author justifies the inappropriate use of prohibitions and restrictions in the regulation of appropriate kind of “gift relations in the public service.” Instead, the introduction of an obligatory annual declaration where public servants point all gifts, including “personal” ones, indicating donor’s personality, the nature of the relationship with him, the market value of the gift. A similar obligation is proposed to provide for close persons of a public servant (first of all, family members as well as close persons who live together with a public servant) in order to strengthen the principles of transparency of “gift relations with the participation of close persons of a public servant,” confirmation of the history of relationship, funds sources for gift’s presentation (the indication of funds sources for the gift is mandatory for this group of persons). For the effective use of the declaration, proposals are formulated to unify the provisions of anti-corruption, tax and tort legislation in the aspect of compliance with the requirements for obtainment of gifts by public servants from their relatives.