Decision-Making beyond the Competence of the Heads of Public Authorities (Acceptance of Work Performed by Contractors: a Case Study)

The purpose of the study is to identify contradictions between the competence of a public official of a government body based on the post he takes, on the one hand, and the need for this official to make managerial decisions beyond his competence. On the basis of this contradiction, the authors show the negative consequences of the implementation of management activities by a public official and suggest some measures to prevent and eliminate them.

The paper analyzes the cases when the heads of public authorities were supposed to accept construction and repair work performed by counterparties under civil contracts, but due to their incompetence in this matter, they signed acts of acceptance of the work performed without indicating any shortcomings, for which they were brought to criminal and financial liability. The authors describe the reasons for these negative phenomena, analyze the possibility and legitimacy of the delegation by the heads of public authorities of powers to accept the work performed and determine the subject matter of the offense.

By analyzing the judicial practice, the authors determine the subjects of crimes in the field of poor-quality reception of work performed by contractors; attention is focused on the fact that in order to qualify such acts as criminal, it is not necessary to establish the intent. Officials’ references to their incompetence in this matter, as a rule, are ignored by the courts. By comparing the activities of leaders in the commercial and public spheres, the authors point to the possibility of criminal prosecution of a public official without claiming damage caused to any person and before considering a legal dispute for compensation for damage between the public authority and the counterparty. In conclusion, the authors make proposals on the need to involve third-party organizations in the acceptance of the work performed on the basis of outsourcing, which will increase the quality of activities of public authorities and reduce the level of malfeasance.

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