A participant of Constituent Congress of Association of Russian Lawyers holds his mandate, December 22, 2005. Russia has roughly 19,000 town councils now, so the project will call for at least 40,000 lawyers.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Lawyers to Shape Election Choice of Russians
Association of Russian Lawyers set to motion yesterday the creation of Federal Center of Legal Programs. It will be a net of 24,000 legal consulting agencies that will render services free of charge and emerge as a backbone for presidential elections of 2008.
On Tuesday, Association of Russian Lawyers Board Chairman Oleg Kutafin and his deputy Dmitry Shumkov presented in Moscow the project to create a net of free legal consulting. Establishment of the net of 3,000 to 4,000 agencies is one of the key provision of cooperation agreement made between Association of Russian Lawyers and Russia’s Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
The better part of the board members of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (Vagit Alekperov, Sergey Bogdanchikov, Vladimir Bogdanov, Andrey Kazmin, Andrey Klishas, Vladimir Lisin and Viktor Rashnikov) became members of the Guardianship Board of the Association, which chairman is First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Apart from Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin is also a member of Association of Russian Lawyers.
It turned out yesterday that the project will be really large-scale. There will be 24,000 consulting agencies instead of 4,000, Kutafin said yesterday, explaining they will open “in each town council.” Russia has roughly 19,000 town councils now, so the project will call for at least 40,000 lawyers.
When it comes to this project, another trend is the growing number of sponsors. The governors stand ready to join it, Kutafin vowed.
The project funding was estimated to reach $100 million at the minimum for initial variant (from 3,000 to 4,000 agencies) and no less than $500 million in view of expansion. Russia has had no philanthropic undertaking of such extent so far. According to sources with president’s administration, the project is regarded as an option to create a backbone for the staff of the Kremlin’s candidate at presidential elections of 2008 to avoid being associated with United Russia Party.
The fact that president’s aide Viktor Ivanov and Prosecutor General Yury Chaika have attended the recent meetings of Association of Russian Lawyers is just another proof of the Kremlin’s interest in the business of this private professional organization of lobbyists.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 13, 2006
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