Photo Credit: http://telegrafist.org

1. Right to go bust

Every fifth borrower in Russia has at least another five loans to service, with the total retail debt burden growing rapidly every year.

34 million Russians, or 45 percent of the country’s workforce, have taken out credits worth some RUR 8.8 trillion, with bad debts accounting for 4.8 percent.

MPs now want to help alleviate the pain by introducing the practice of filing personal bankruptcy into law.

The bill has passed first reading and is expected to be taken up this autumn, says Vedomosti.

2. Right to self-defense

United Russia’s Alexey Zhuravlev is drafting a law to expand the legal boundaries for self-defense.

He refers to foreign experience where residents are cleared of charges even if the burglar they had killed while defending their property dies.

Zhuravlev says wants to bolster the rights of the law-abiding citizens and clarify the definition of the ‘acceptable limits of self-defense’, which is used in current legislation.

As a rule of thumb, courts in Russia have not been lenient to those who put up resistance against gun-toting intruders and managed to kill or gravely injure them in the fight.

3. Right to file a lawsuit

MPs also want to make the utilities market more competitive and resident-friendly by empowering the owners of apartments to file a class-action lawsuit or switch between the property management companies easier.

United Russia’s Vladimir Vasilyev says the legislators are working to get the final version of the draft before the new session.

According to the bill, the owners would be able to set up a public organization and delegate their authorities to one person who would then file a lawsuit against the property management company. This will eliminate the need to get notarized copies of letters of proxy from thousands of residents.