LEGAL AWARENESS IN THE CONTEXT OF BRIBERY CONTROL

Being based on the brief analysis of anti-corruption activities this article shows the ambivalent attitude of citizens towards bribery, and such attitude is a serious obstacle to achieving beneficial effects of implementation of anti-corruption measures. The mission is to detach the determinants of citizens’ positive attitude towards bribery, and to offer the ways of their counteraction. Our analysis includes international and Russian laws on countering corruption. We have worked out and conducted a questionnaire to study the essence of bribe-taking and understand its semantic fullness. The questionnaire has also included the modifications of association method. Our study has helped us to detach main structures that are the determinants of positive perception of bribe-taking. As part of study we have determined the following positively perceptible functions of bribe-taking: diagnostics of the most problem areas in the system of social relations; saving the resources while passing the bureaucratic hurdles; ensuring the decent life of underpaid workforce. In the context of the position of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 2 dated 09.07.2013 in the part of admission of voluntary confession irrespective of the motives of the applicant, they have demonstrated the contradiction between the purposes of criminal legal protection of society against bribery and the purposes of formation of the correct legal consciousness. Imperfect mechanisms of public relations management have caused the ambivalent attitude of society towards bribery. We have offered to nullify the benefits of bribe-taking including the ratification of Article 20 (Illicit Enrichment) of the UN Convention against Corruption. The offered ratification mechanism considers the modern life and makes it possible to adopt the new legal realities by the society easily and conflict-free. The ambivalent attitude towards bribery blunts the effectiveness of bribery countering and is based on the imperfect mechanisms of public relations management. Imperfection of these mechanisms causes system vulnerability and gives positive coloring to the perception of bribe-taking.

ambivalence, corruption, bribery, bribery-taking, attitude to bribery-taking, corruption deal, positively perceptive bribery-taking functions, risks and benefits balance, anti-corruption measures, effectiveness, problems of adoption of new legal reality by the society.

Kalyagin Yu. S., Konopleva I. N. Legal awareness in the context of bribery control. Business. Education. Law, 2020, no. 2, pp. 245–251. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2020.51.250.