MOSCOW, April 25 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Government has proposed to amend legislation governing the compensations of procedural expenditures, including those related to court-appointed lawyers, on the part of convicts.

The Government is to discuss the draft document and later submit it as a bill to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

It is envisaged that compensations are to be mandatory paid in criminal cases where courts give non-custodial or suspended sentences, or convicts are released on parole. 

The amendments to the Russian Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, the document reads, will permit to offset the maximal amount of expenditures the federal budget bears for court-appointed lawyers.

The proposed changes will not negatively affect convicts, according to the document, as they cover only the amounts set out by final court judgements and are not to be collected in cases where convicts have been found out to be insolvent so there will be no discrimination of convicts on the ground of their property status.