Experts Discussed Prospects of Law-making in Field of Digital Development in Tavricheskiy Palace

A meeting of the Expert Council of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly – Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications (RCC) was held in the Tavricheskiy Palace, the headquarters of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The event was attended by the academia, politicians, representatives of public organizations, as well as staff members of the IPA CIS Council Secretariat, headed by Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council Dmitriy Kobitskiy. The meeting was chaired by member of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, member of the IPA CIS Permanent Commission on Culture, Information, Tourism and Sport Nikolai Ivanov.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy opened the event and emphasized the importance and relevance of the agenda of the Expert Council. “The explosive penetration of information technologies into all spheres of human activity that we are witnessing and that is called digitalization, affects our work. The changes that the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings will definitely require (and require already) an adequate reflection in the legal field. And this is precisely the area of ​​responsibility of legislative authorities and consequently of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, which has the mandate to develop model legislation in order to harmonize national legal systems of the Commonwealth countries,” said the Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy announced the decision of the Chairperson of the Council of Heads of the Communications Administrations of the RCC, Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadayev, according to which State Secretary – Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Lyudmila Bokova became Chairperson of the IPA CIS – RCC Expert Council. Nikolai Ivanov and Director General of the Executive Committee of the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications Nurudin Mukhitdinov are Deputy Chairpersons of the Expert Council. Deputy Head of the IPA CIS Expert and Analytical Directorate Alexander Surygin was appointed Executive Secretary of the Expert Council.

The participants approved the composition of the Expert Council and the Provisions on the IPA CIS – RCC Expert Council taking into account the comments and suggestions made at the meeting. While presenting this document, Nurudin Mukhitdinov noted the important role of the digital economy, which “covers almost all aspects of life of individuals, countries and public authorities.” “We need modern approaches to address the problems that we face today. The achievement of the new goals set by the UN General Assembly, the goals in the area of sustainable development, as well as the implementing the issues included in the development programs of our countries, requires the establishment of an appropriate legal framework that would make our region more promising for investment and more comfortable for living,” says the Director General of the RCC Executive Committee.

A report on current trends in the development of digital technologies was made by Doctor of Technical Science, member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, academic adviser of the “OKB SAPR” Valeriy Konyavskiy. He mentioned the difference between the digital economy and the information society, electronic signature authentication, the generation of smart contracts, the problem of identification, etc.

The report gave rise to an intense debate among the participants of the meeting, who expressed a number of opinions and ideas. Director of the Institute of Digital Economics at St. Petersburg State University of Economics Denis Gorulev drew the attention of colleagues to the problem of automation of law and suggested that the Expert Council consider the prospects for introducing machine-readable norms (the laws being described using program code). Deputy Head of the Department of Administrative Legislation and Process of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation Lyudmila Tereshchenko called on to take into account the implementation of the model legislation in the national legal framework of the CIS countries. Her idea was fully supported by Nikolai Ivanov, who noted that that such a practice had been already implemented in the IPA CIS Permanent Commissions. Expert of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific on paperless trade Alla Kryzhanovskaya noted the significant role of model laws and codes as new legal standards required in a modern society.

Senior Researcher at the St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladislav Blyum spoke about the legal basis for the digital development of the society in the Commonwealth of Independent States. He reminded the participants that the IPA CIS, since its creation in 1992, has been successfully fulfilling the tasks of legal support in the harmonization of legislation of the CIS Member Nations, developing and proposing model legislation and other documents as guidelines for national legislative processes.

As early as 1993, the Assembly adopted the Framework Document on Regulation of Information Exchange in Member Nations of the CIS, followed by the development of more than 25 model laws and other documents in the field of “digitalization” and concerning the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Among the main ones, Vladislav Blyum noted the Model Information Code for the Member Nations of the CIS and its revised edition; Model Laws on Electronic Signature, on Electronic Commerce, on On-line Public Services, on Remote Medical Services, on Remote Education in the Member Nations of the CIS, on Framework Internet Regulation, on Electronic Processing of Documents, on Information, Informatization and Information Security, on Critical Information and Communication Infrastructure Facilities, on Information and Communication Technologies in Educational System,on Cross-Border Information Exchange of Electronic Documents, on E-Government, on Digital Notarial Procedures in the Course of Cross-Border Information Exchange In 2018, the Model Law on Personal Data (revised edition required due to the spread of digital technologies) and the Recommendations on Use of Instruments and Results of Regional Monitoring of Information and Communication Development of the CIS Member Nations were developed and adopted.

The meeting also discussed the Long-Term Plan for Model Law-Making in the Commonwealth of Independent States for 2020–2022 in the part related to digital development. Chairperson of the High-Level Working Group on the Development of the Information Society, Deputy Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of the Azerbaijan Republic Elmir Velizade proposed to include into the Long-Term Plan the development of a glossary, which would summarize the terms occurring in the model laws in the field of digital development already adopted by the IPA CIS. The proposal was approved and adopted by the other members of the Expert Council.

Thereafter, the participants of the meeting evaluated the prospects of developing a Model Law on Ending Violations in the Field of Information and Communication Technologies and the revised Model Information Code for the CIS Member Nations. They also reviewed the draft Model Law on Digital Development, which is currently being developed by the IPA CIS Permanent Commission on Culture, Information, Tourism and Sport. As a result of the discussion, the members of the Expert Council considered it appropriate to propose the Permanent Commission to develop the Recommendations on the Digital Development of the CIS Member Nations instead of the Model Law on Digital Development.

At the end of the meeting, participants were informed on the international conference on the legal support of the digital development of society scheduled for 2022 in St. Petersburg, in the Tavricheskiy Palace. The members of the Expert Council recommended the IPA CIS Council Secretariat to submit to the CIS Executive Committee a proposal to add this conference to the Plan of Priority Measures for the Implementation of the CIS Concept of Cooperation in Digital Development of Society.

Within the meeting, Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council Dmitriy Kobitskiy met with the delegation of the Communications Administration of the Republic of Uzbekistan headed by Director of “UNICON.UZ” Makhsum Makhmudov. The parties discussed the issues related to the composition of the Expert Council, modern trends in development of the digital technologies, legal framework of the digital development across the CIS and digital identification.