The problem of transparency of state planning in the Russian Federation

16 Pages·0.248 MB·English

by  Kudryashova E.

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSPARENCY
OF STATE PLANNING
IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
E. V. Kudryashova
Candidate of Law, LL M, Assistance of Professor (Docent),
the Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation
Introduction
Public planning in the context of the public governance is now on the top of the
agenda for the administrative science in Russia. In the post-Soviet time public plan-
ning was associated with the old-times and communism. Until present times, pub-
lic planning was a topic “non-grata” in Russian legislation and science.
Now the situation changed to the opposite. Parallels with the old Soviet times
are becoming popular and the relation with the past considered to be an advantage.
Examples can be found in newspapers. Th e analytical center under the Government
of the Russian Federation which was established in April 2008 was appointed by the
central offi cial newspaper of Russia “Rossiyskaya gazeta” the successor of Gosplan
(the State Committee on State Planning in the Soviet Union). Some political leaders
of contemporary Russia see planning and restoring the Gosplan as a remedy for
economic crisis. It is alleged that “Soviet directors” and Gosplan “at least knew how
the industry worked and what, how and when should be done, including the situa-
tions of crises. And for the people there should be industrial enterprises. Th e inad-
missibility of industrial production stoppage and inadmissibility of employment
layoff s always were the priority — moral and economic” .
Many of the academic scientists now refer to the vast array of Soviet ideas about
public planning. Lately a few publications appeared on legal framework for public
planning. Th e idea of state planning as a constitutional principle is positively dis-
cussed among the academic people: “Th e constitutional and legal defi nition of the
institute of state planning is needed now. Th erefore, it is expedient to develop a set
of constitutional provisions, regulating the planning activity of the state” Academ-
 Pier Sidibe “Gosplan RF”. Rossiyskaya gazeta. Federal issue. 2008, No 4634, 10 April, p.2.
 Yuri Luzhkov “Rossiiskiye osobennosti mirovogo krizisa”. Rossiiskaya gazeta. Federal issue. 2009,
No 4846, 11 February, p. 1.
 Alexandr Matnenko “Pravovoye Obespecheniye Planovoy Deyatelnosti Sovremennogo Rossiyskogo
Gosudarstva”, (1) Lex russica (2009), p. 117-122; Natalia Kasatkina “Institualizatsiya Planirovaniya v
Zarubezhnyh Stranah”, (3) Zhurnal Zarubezhnogo Zakonodatelstva i Sravnitelnogo pravovedeniya,
2008, pp. 47-52.
 Konstitutsionnoye Pravo Gosudarstv Evropy: Uchebnoye posobiye. Edited by Dmitry Kovachev
(Wolters Kluwer, Moscow, 2005 ), pp. 28- 29.
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
ic lawyers as well as politicians allude to the global economic crisis — “Restoration
of constitutional principle of planning is a necessary basis for the revival of balan-
ced economy, which will be capable to fulfi l the requirements of the Russian
society”.
Planning in all its aspects already returned to the legislation on the local level.
Strategic planning, social-economic programs and spatial (territory) planning is
now a legally obligatory means of governance for local authorities. Th e Federal Law
“On general principles of Organisation of local government in Russia” sets the rul-
ing how plans should be set and adopted. Before these rules were just on the paper,
but recent practice shows that many of municipalities have adopted strategic plans
or are in the process of drafting these plans.
Th e positive attitude to planning seems to be absolute and the problems related
to democratic aspects seem to be pushed aside. Some of the issues related to state
planning are falling out of the discussion. Th is article focuses on one aspect of pub-
lic governance in general and public planning in particular in the Russian Federa-
tion —the problem of transparency.
Just to draw a line around the subject-matter, a short remark about the under-
standing of “plan” and “planning” should be made. In the former Soviet academic
literature as well as among legal practitioners “plans” and “planning” were under-
stood in a wide sense. In Soviet times planning was a fundamental constitutional
principle of social system and covered not only economic aspects, but nearly all
aspects of the social life. In one way or another, planning was mentioned in all Sovi-
et constitutions: of 1924, 1926 and 1977. In the last one — the Constitution of
1977 plan considered as one of the main principles of social order.
However, it would be a mistake to consider planning to be an attribute only of
the Soviet system. European countries have their own traditions of planning and its
interpretation, and here, as in many other fi elds, the common law approach diff ers
from the continental law. “With the growth of the social welfare state in the 20th
century, planning became and continues to be an important state activity. Th e object
of planning is to augment the welfare of the people by the best possible utilisation
of the limited resources of the society. Th e process of attaining that object through
planning, however, results in serious limitations of the rights and freedoms of citi-
zens. To that extent, plans and planning, which are otherwise mostly extra-legal,
become a subject of legal interest. Th e nature of plans and planning, however, eludes
all attempts to tighten them within any specifi c concept of legal activity. In the Ger-
man law, the problem becomes even graver than in common law countries because
the word ‘plan’ is used to cover more diverse activities in German than in common
law countries. Even the state budget is a kind, and one of the oldest, of plan (Haus-
 Konstitutsionnoye Pravo Gosudarstv Evropy: Uchebnoye posobiye. Edited by Dmitry Kovachev
(Wolters Kluwer, Moscow, 2005 ), pp. 28- 29.
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
haltsplan). Moreover, in Germany the amount of planning legis-lation is very large
and the planning machinery is quite complex”.
Contemporary Russian law-science follows the Soviet and German tradition:
‘plans’ and ‘planning’ embraces a wide diversity of activity, including budgets and
strategic planning. Taking into consideration this wide approach to planning, here
we speak about the problem of transparency in many aspects of planning: territo-
rial (spatial) planning, budget planning, etc.
As a short introductory comment on the notion of transparency declared in the
name of this article, it could be mentioned that not all the academicians consider
transparency to be a general principle of administrative law. “And whether open-
ness, or (in more fashionable terminology) transparency, is properly an administra-
tive law principle remains a question that receives diff erent answers in diff erent
systems from diff erent authors. Legislative protection of access to government
information through the apparatus of administrative law, typically an ombudsman,
specialist tribunal or judicial review, brings it, however, clearly within the ambit of
administrative law.
Recognizing the problem, Michael Taggart sidesteps it by listing openness, fair-
ness, participation, impartiality, accountability, honesty and rationality as ‘public
law values . . . distilled primarily from administrative law’. He also acknowledges
‘much common ground here with constitutional law’. But Taggart may be mistaken
in characterising some of these principles as legal. While fairness, impartiality, hon-
esty and rationality are unquestionably classical administrative law principles, and
openness, as just suggested, can sometimes be a constitutional value, accountability
and transparency more probably derive from the good governance agenda”. In one
way or another the sound democratic public governance is inconceivable without
transparency as its main feature.
Transparency of public planning in fi nance
Th e problem of public fi nancial planning transparency has its history in Russia.
It is worth mentioning that information about state budget was a state classifi ed
secret document in Russia till 1908. Information about the records of state incomes
and expenditures was a privilege of a few highest civil servants. Only after 1908 the
state records of incomes and expenditures were discussed by the State Duma and by
the State Council and fi nally approved by the Emperor.
 Singh Mahendra German Law in Common Law Perspective. (Springer, Berlin, 2nd edition, 2001),
p. 109.
 Carol Harlow “Global Administrative Law: Th e Quest for Priniciples and Values”, Vol. 17 (1)
Th e European Journal of International Law (EJIL) (2006) 1187-214, at 193.
 Tatyana Semenkova, Alexandr Semenkov Denezhnye reformy Rossii v XIX veke. (Marafon,
St.Petersburg, 1992), p. 96.
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
Budget is a democratic instrument and one of the measures serving the balance
of powers. Th erefore, a democratic society is not feasible without transparency of
the budget law. According to Article 11 “Legal forms of budget” of the Budget Code
of the Russian Federation (BK RF) , federal budget and budgets of Russian public
off -budget funds are drafted and approved in the form of federal laws; regional bud-
gets and budgets of regional public off -budget funds are drafted and approved in
the form of regional laws; local budgets are drafted and approved in the form of
local acts of municipal representative bodies. Th e Russian Constitution requires all
the laws and acts of municipalities to be published (part 3 article 15 of Russian Con-
stitution). Th ese Constitutional provisions are elaborated in Article 5 of the BK RF.
According to part 2 of Article 5, the budget law is to be offi cially published not later
than fi ve days after it is signed in due course. Th e decision on budget is to be offi -
cially published not later than ten days after it is signed in due course (the latter is
about the municipal budgets).
It seems that the quoted articles of the Constitution and the law could guarantee
transparency (openness) — one of the principles of the Russian budgetary system
according to Article 28 of the BK RF. However, the problem of transparency of bud-
gets is seriously discussed in Russia. Th e problem of transparency was the reason
for reform of budget classifi cation, which happened in 2007 — the law on budget
classifi cation was abolished, and all the relevant provisions were included in the
Budget Code of the Russian Federation. Various social institutions undertake a lot
of eff orts to make federal, regional and local budgets really transparent in Russia.
Th ere is a special project supported by the Parliament of the Russian Federation and
the Russian Civic Chamber on the openness of the budgets in Russia — www.open-
budget.ru. Th is project’s aim is to give public access to the documents related to
budget. Another issue raised by the organisers of www.openbudget.ru is clarity of
fi nancial documents for public. Special guidelines are published in order to make
budget laws and acts understandable.
Th e problem of transparency gets worse if we start speaking about budget plan-
ning process. Th e budget itself is on the top of the budget planning iceberg.
Th e project of the budget law is a result of a whole process of planning. It is still
questionable if the budget planning before the project of budget is submitted to the
 See Andrash Shayo Samoogranicheniye vlasti (kratrii kurs konstitutsionalizma). (Jurist, Moscow,
2001, translated from Hungarian.), p.191.
 SZ RF (3 August 1998) No 31 , item.3823 (Bjudzhetny Kodeks — the Budget Code of the Russian
Federation) with subsequent amendments.
 See Federal Law “O vnesenii izmenenii v Bjudzhetniy Kodeks Rossiyskoy Federatsii v chasti regu-
lirovaniya bjudzhetnogo protsessa i privedenii v sootvetstviye s bjudzhetnym zakonodatelstvom
Rossiyskoy Federatsii nekotoryh normativnyh aktov Rossiyskoy Federatsii”, No 63-ФЗ signed on
26 April 2007, SZ RF (30 April 2007) No 18 , item.2117 (“About amendments to the Budget Code of
Russian Federation in the part of regulation of budgetary process and bringing in consistency with
the budget legislation of Russian Federation certain legislative acts of Russian Federation”).
 General information is on http://www.openbudget.ru/contest2009/
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State Duma should be transparent. Basically, there are no legal provisions requiring
to make the information about the budget planning available in any way. After the
project of budget is submitted to the State Duma, its parameters are discussed in
the mass media, but no offi cial information is usually published. Th e general trend
is that the budget planning process which takes place before the budget project is
fi nalized and submitted “goes to the shadow”. Th e Russian Government discussed
all the budget parameters for 2010-2012 in the course of closed meetings. Th e Kom-
mersant newspaper wrote about two important meetings presided over by the Rus-
sian Prime-minister where problems of budget were discussed. Th e journalists of
the Kommersant regretted that no information about those meetings was offi cially
available. Th e Kommersant newspaper stated in May 2009: “Th e transparency of
the budget process goes down already now.”
In the context of transparency of fi nancial plans it is worth mentioning one of
the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund’s specialists in respect of
the global fi nancial crisis. Th e IMF specialists contended that more rapid and infor-
mative disclosure of fi nancial institutions is needed, and national authorities should
seek to quell misperceptions by providing timely and accurate aggregate informa-
tion. Th e IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) proposes that cen-
tral banks and other relevant regulators issue special fi nancial stability reports that
could act to calm markets. Restoring counterparty confi dence is a key element to
reducing volatility and the knock-on eff ects to the real economy. Th is logic sug-
gests that all kinds of fi nancial public planning should be in due time disclosed in
order to ensure fi nancial stability. Th erefore, transparency of public planning in
fi nancial fi eld can be considered an eff ective anticrisis measure. Nevertheless, fi nan-
cial plans in Russia getting more closed with the growth of global fi nancial crisis.
Transparency of territorial (spatial) planning
Th e situation with the spatial planning transparency is even more serious in
Russia than with budget planning. Th e principles of spatial planning changed dra-
matically with the end of the Soviet era. With the development of economy Russia
faced the reality of commercial value of the information about spatial planning and
it seems that administrative authorities are not ready to deal with this reality.
It came as a surprise that the disclosure of plans infl uences business decisions, pric-
es etc. For example, a very important consequences can be triggered by disclosure
 Petr Netreba, Dmitriy Butrin D. “Budget peremeshaetsya v ten’ “, Komersant Ъ, 91/П (4146), 2009,
25 May, p.1.
 Laura Kodres “Credit Crisis is broadening, IMF warns”, IMF Survey Magazine; IMF Research.
8 April 2008 http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:4Ntv5KQ3QKEJ:www.imf.org/external/pubs/
ft/survey/so/2008/RES040808A.htm+Credit+Crisis+is+broadening,+IMF+warns&cd=1&hl=ru&
ct=clnk&gl=ru
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
of information about planned highway. “Th e most famous precedent of misuse of
governmental information for commercial purposes was the land purchase around
planned toll-highway Moscow-St. Petersburg. Th e project of a highway 650 kilome-
ters long triggered an agiotage even on the drafting stage”…” According to some
estimates, around 7 thousand hectares of the most liquid land were purchased, and
the highway infrastructure is intended to be situated on the purchased sites. Inves-
tors did not conceal that they invested in the land not only for construction pur-
poses, but also for making profi t out of price-increase in the long prospective”.
Offi cial reaction for this situation was: “Th e toll-highways shall be built under secret
regime”. Th e same situation was around the Olympic sites construction in Sochi:
“Th e general plan of construction was not approved yet, but the land prices soar to
the top limit, and the government itself had to buy land at fabulous prices”. Th ere
are many other examples from the administrative practice like those.
If we look into the special law on the road-building activity , there are no provi-
sions related to transparency of planning of motor-ways. Article 14 “Planning of the
motorway activity” says that motorway planning is based on the general planning
documents and refers to the Building code of the Russian Federation (Gradostroitel-
niy Kodeks Rossiskoi Federatsii). Th e Building Code of the Russian Federation
tells us about the general plans of villages and general plans of urban districts. Fol-
lowing Article 24 of the Building Code of the Russian Federation, the project of
general plan is to be published in the same way as the local acts or other offi cial
information, not later than 3 months before its approval, and it is published on the
web-site of the village (if such site exists) or on the web-site of the urban districts.
Th e project of the general plan is to be discussed at public hearings.
Th e analysis of the provision shows that any plan will be published only piece by
piece as a part of a general plan. In the case of federal highway, people will never see
the general picture. Th ose who have property in another district (even 50-100 kilo-
meters far) are deprived of the opportunity to know if the motorway goes directly
through their country houses. Th ere is no reliable general source of information
about the local acts around Russia. Th e special data-bases for legal practitioners
contain some local documents, but not all of them. Sometimes it is a real problem
even for a practitioner to fi nd the published text of a local act of even not that
remote municipality.
 Tatyana Kosobokova, Eugeniya Gavrilyuk “Taynye marshruty”, RBC daily yug, 2008, 14 Iuly,
128 (159), p..2.
 Ibid.
 Ibid.
 Th e Law “Ob avtomobilnikh dorogakh i dorozhnoy deyatelnosti v Rossiiskoy Federatsii “, No 257-
ФЗ signed on 8 November 2007, SZ RF (12 November 2007) No 46, item. 5553 (Th e law “About the
motor-ways and motorway activity in Russian Federation and about amendment of some legislative
acts of Russian Federation”).
 SZ RF (3 January 2005) No 1 (part 1), item. 16.
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Th e institute of public hearings is not very well developed and promoted among
the population. Th e information about public hearings in the mass media is scant
and the authorities do their best to grade the infl uence of public hearings on the
decision-making process related to the territory. We can fi nd a good illustration to
the above said statement right in Moscow: the public hearings on the general plan
of Moscow. It is enough to say that public hearings in Moscow were Organised from
23 July to 7 August when the vast majority of Muscovites are usually out from the
city. If we check the mass media —only the results of the public hearings were wide-
ly announced. Th e public hearings do not ensure the real transparency in the spatial
planning.
In the German administrative case law, there is a case relevant to this discussion.
Th e problem discussed in the German court relates exactly to informing individuals
about the intended highway construction. According to paragraph 2 § 18 of the Law
on highways from 1961 plans with attachments shall be published so that every-
body whose interests are infringed had an opportunity to express his/her opinion.
Consistent with paragraph 1 § 18 of the Law on highways, the sketches and explana-
tions to the plan shall give clear insight about the project, its purpose and aff ected
ground sites and buildings. Such regulation is aimed at informing individuals so
that anybody in any way aff ected by planning has an opportunity to check if their
interests are infringed and decide if they have to seek protection of their legal rights
and take part in the public hearing. However, there is no need to produce all the
documents for a fi nal decision on the lawfulness of planning.
Maybe the legislator in Russia shall follow these positive examples and provide
some guarantees for the individuals in order that they could “check whether their
interests are infringed and decide whether they have to seek protection of their legal
rights and take part in the public hearing”. Now there is not even a hint on such
development of democracy.
Leaving aside the effi ciency of the provisions about spatial planning, even those
scarce provisions are considered by public authorities to be a problem. Legal provi-
sions about spatial planning were in place on the day of the above mentioned pub-
lication about the misuse of offi cial information and possibility to classify the infor-
mation as a state secret.
General considerations on the rights to the information about planning
Leading our reasoning from the particular to general, we are coming to the dis-
cussion on the right to seek and receive information about state governance and
 Ingo Rikhter , Gunnar Shuppert Sudebnaya praktika po administrativnomu pravu: uchebnoye
posobiye po administrativnomu pravu. ( Jurist, Moscow, 2000, translated from Dr. Ingo Richter,
Dr Gunnar Folke Schuppert Casebook Verwaltungsrecht, C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Mьnchen, 1995) , p. 452.
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administrative decisions and the guarantee of access to the information related to
rights and freedoms of individuals. Similarly to many constitutions around the
world, the Russian Constitution has the relevant provisions. Part 4 of Article 29
states that everyone shall have the right to freely look for, receive, transmit, produce
and distribute information in any legal way. Th e list of data comprising state secrets
shall be determined by a federal law. Part 2 of Article 24 sets that the bodies of state
authority and local self-government, their offi cials shall ensure for everyone the
possibility of getting acquainted with documents and materials directly aff ecting his
or her rights and freedoms, unless otherwise provided for by law.
Th ese constitutional provisions are expanded further in federal laws. First of all
in the Federal law “On information, information technologies and information pro-
tection”. According to part 2 Section 8, an individual can get any information
related to his/her rights from state authorities, local authorities and civil servants
of those authorities in due course. It is prohibited to restrict access to acts infring-
ing rights and lawful interests or obligations of individuals and to acts related to
organisations’ legal framework and also the powers of state bodies and local
authorities.
Th e Federal law “On information, information technologies and information
protection” sets the obligation of public authorities to provide access to the infor-
mation about their activities in the Russian language and offi cial languages of
republics within Russian Federation. Th ose who want to get access to information
do not have to give reasons for getting such information (part 5 Section 8 of the
Law).
In connection with the Federal “On information, information technologies and
information protection” , it would be appropriate to make a short excursion into
the “historical domain” of its provisions and identify the overall trend of regula-
tion. It is interesting to compare abolished provisions and the legislation in force.
If we compare the Federal law “On information, information technologies and
information protection” and its predecessor the Federal law ”On information,
informatization and protection of information“, we shall see that previously the
obligations to provide the information about administrative activity were more
sound. Openness of the information was understood as a part of public control.
Article 12 of this law, which is abolished now, was formulated as follows:
“Th e access of individuals and legal bodies to state informational resources is the
basis for the public control over the activity of state bodies and local authorities,
public, political and other Organisations, and over the general condition of econ-
omy, ecology and other spheres of social life”. Th ere was also Article 13 “Guaran-
tees for provision of information” under which state bodies and local authorities
 Th e Federal law “Ob informatsii, inforatizatsii i zashite informatsii” signed on 20 February 1995
No 24-ФЗ SZ RF, (20 February 1995) No 8, item. 609.
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
form accessible to everyone informational resources on questions of their activity,
and within its competence massively inform the users on issues related to rights,
freedoms and obligations of individuals, their security and other issues of public
interest.
Besides that, a clearer requirement to provide information was in part 3 Ar-
ticle 6 of the Federal Law “On general principles of Organisation of local govern-
ment in the Russian Federation”, which is abolished from 1 January, 2009: “ Local
authorities and their offi ce holders are obliged to ensure for everyone possibility to
get familiar with the documents and materials, directly related to rights and obliga-
tions of the individuals and citizens, and also ensure a possibility to get other full
and reliable information about the activity of local authorities if otherwise not pro-
vided by law”.
Information tends to be generalized, and it is not considered to be a part of pub-
lic control anymore. A few gaps will be fi lled by the coming Federal law “On ensur-
ing the access to the information about the activity of state bodies and local author-
ities” coming into force on 1 January, 2010 (we shall look at this law in details later
in this article), but not all.
Discussing the legislation about the public governance and civil service we
should mention Federal law “On the system of public service of the Russian Federa-
tion”. Public planning is a part of administrative activity of state bodies, therefore, it
is covered by the provisions about the civil service. Among other principles of civil
service system the above-mentioned Federal Law names the principle of priority of
rights and freedoms of individuals and their direct application, obligation of their
recognition, observation and protection; transparency (openness) of civil service
and its accessibility to the public control, unbiased informing of society about the
activity of civil servants (see part 1 Section 3). Th e principle of priority of rights and
freedoms of individuals (item 1 part 1 article 4) can be found in the Federal Law
“On the state civil service of the Russian Federation” . Th ere is also a principle of
accessibility of the information about the civil service (item 6 part 1 article 4).
Some of the academic lawyers believe that the accessibility of information about
the civil service is a pure fi ction. In the Federal Law “On the state civil service of the
Russian Federation” there is a notion of “ministerial” information — the informa-
tion which became available to a civil servant in the course of carrying out his/her
duties (item 9 part 1 Article 17 of the Federal Law “On the state civil service of the
Russian Federation”. Analysis of the Russian legislation shows that this notion of
 Th e Federal Law “Ob obshih printsipah Organisatsii mestnogo samoupravleniya” signed on
28 August 1995 No 154-ФЗ, SZ RF (28 August 1995) No 35, item 3506.
 Th e Federal law “Ob obespechenii dostupa k informatsii o deyatelnosti gosudarstvennykh organov
i organov mestnogo samoupravleniya” signed on 9 February 2009 No 8-ФЗ, SZ RF ( 2 June 2003) ,
No 22 , item. 2063
 Th e Federal Law “O gosudarstvennoi grazhdanskoi sluzhbe Rossiskoy Federatsii” signed on 27 July

2004 No 79-ФЗ, SZ RF (2 August 2004) No 31 , item. 3215.
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E. V. Kudryashova. Th e Problem of Transparency of State Planning in the Russian Federation
“ministerial information” covers nearly all the information available to civil ser-
vants, including routine day-to-day information like the number of people sitting in
the same offi ce, and the disclosure of such ministerial information is prohibited .
“In fact, the strict ban on the disclosure of ministerial information sets a solid bar-
rier between the civil society and civil service, which is inconsistent with the prin-
ciples of a democratic society”.  Disclosure of any “ministerial information” is a
ground for dismissal. Taking into account that planning is a process within the state
bodies and local authorities, it seems like this “solid barrier” becomes even more
solid for planning.
It is very unlikely that there is a lawful possibility to classify information about
the planning as a state secret as it was proposed in the publication about building of
highways. According to Section 2 of the RF Law “On state secret” , a state secret is
defi ned as data protected by government in the fi eld of its military, foreign policy,
economic, secret service and investigation activity, dissemination of which can
harm the security of the Russian Federation. And even the security reasons do not
allow the offi cials to keep silence. Th e RF Law “On security” clearly states in Arti-
cle 7 that citizens and Organisations have the right to explanations in respect of the
restrictions of their rights and freedoms from the state bodies, ensuring the secu-
rity. On request such explanations are provided in written form within time-limits
set by the law.
Th us, the obligation of giving offi cial information about all kind of administra-
tive decisions in time is readily apparent from the provisions of the Russian legisla-
tion, but now this requirements are quite generalized: this is not a part of public
control, provisions are general and somewhat vague.
Transparency of planning in the context of public interest
Transparency of public planning is closely connected with the notion of public
interest. Although the idea of the public interest is often scorned by contemporary
planning theorists, it nevertheless remains the pivot around which debates about
the nature of planning and its purposes turn. Many steps taken by Russian public
 Mikhail Presnyakov, Segey Channov “Printsip dostupnosti informatsii o gosudarstvennoy sluzhbe:
realnost ili fi ktsiya?”, (3) Zhurnal zarubezhnogo zakonodatelstva I sravnitelnogo pravovedeniya
(2008), 43-46, at 46 .
 Mikhail Presnyakov, Segey Channov “Printsip dostupnosti informatsii o gosudarstvennoy sluzh-
be: realnost ili fi ktsiya?”, (3) Zhurnal zarubezhnogo zakonodatelstva I sravnitelnogo pravovedeniya
(2008), 43-46, at 46.
 Th e Law “O gosudarstvennoi taine” signed on 21 June 1993 No 5485-1, SZ RF (13 October 1997)
No 41 , item. 8220-8235.
 Th e Law RF “O bezopasnosti” signed on 5 March 1992 No 2446-1, Rossiskaya gazeta, 1992, 6 May,
No 103.
 Heather Campbel, Robert Marshall “Utilitarism’s bad Breath? A Re-evaluation of the Public Inter-
est Justifi cation for Planning”, Vol 1 (2) Planning Th eory (2002), 163-187, at 163.
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