Problems of legal regulation of operative-investigative support for the security of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The article discusses the problematic issues of implementing operative-investigative activity related to obtaining information on threats to the security of the Russian Federation. According to the author, the main problem is a contradiction in the provisions between the Federal Law “On the operative-investigative activity” with the sectoral legislation regulating the state bodies engaged in operative-investigative activity. First of all, the terminology of the sectoral legislation does not comply with the Federal Law “On operational-investigative activity”. Secondly, sectoral legislation does not provide the same degree of protection for all types of security of the Russian Federation. For example, sectoral legislation does not permit operative-investigative activity in order to identify threats to environmental safety. Thirdly, officials of state bodies do not always clearly understand which law to execute. We can conclude that only the bodies of the Federal Security Service and the Federal Guard Service are directly vested with the rights to carry out operative-investigative activity in order to identify threats to the security of the Russian Federation. However, officials involved in operative-investigative activity often do not take into account their operational-search jurisdiction and go beyond their established authority. In order to eliminate this problem, the author proposes to bring the provisions of sectoral legislation in line with the Federal Law “On operative-investigative activity”. Another problem that impedes the effective operative-investigative support for the security of the Russian Federation, in the author’s opinion, is the insufficiency of specification of security threats as grounds for conducting operative-investigative measures. The author proposes to address in the legislation the most significant threats to the security of the Russian Federation, which can be regarded as independent grounds for implementing operativeinvestigative measures.