MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - The definition of "police" in Russia's revised police law is too confusing and unclear, Internet users, cited in an Interior Ministry report on online discussions, say.
Media-savvy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev put the law up for public discussion in early August, in an unprecedented bid to involve Russians in policy-making.
The law, which, among other things, renames the Russian interior forces from the time-honored "militia" - more redolent of the 1920s Bolshevik militiamen, Medvedev argues - to the Western-style "police," will replace the 1991 legislation.
The law defines police as "part of a centralized system of the federal organ of the executive branch performing functions to implement the government's policy on the normative-legal regulation in the sphere of interior affairs".
While some argue there is no need to change the agency's name in the first place, others have suggested their own definitions of "police".
The revised law is part of the Kremlin's bid to restore public trust in Russia's police force, associated in recent years with corruption and brutality.
RIA Novosti
