Legal aspects of implementation of competition in the sphere of rendering public (municipal) services

Abstract

The subject of this research is the practice of application of antimonopoly legislation of the Russian Federation to budgetary (autonomous) institutions, including in the context of restricting the established by the Section 3 of the Article 15 of the Federal Law No.135-FZ of July 26, 2006 “On Protection of Competition". The goal consists in identification and analysis of possible legal issues emerging due to the dual nature of the status of such institutions, substantiated by the conducted reform for increasing their economic independence. The article provides a scientific assessment of legal consequences of recognition of the budgetary (autonomous) institutions as economic entities for the purpose of application of antimonopoly legislation, taking into account the existing ban on combining functions of government branches and functions of economic entities, as well as authorizing the economic entities for the functions and rights of these branches, including state control and supervision bodies. Content of the concept of “function of the government branch” is reviewed. The author’s special contribution consists in evaluation of the situation, in which in the monopolized by public entity spheres related to the exercise of powers, are established  budgetary (autonomous) institutions that charge for rendering services required and essential for provision of state (municipal) services. The article views the mechanism of social procurement as market-oriented, a competitive way of rendering services using budget funds by both governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The novelty of this work lies in conclusion on the need to consider the principle of fair competition in case if the public legal entity decides to forgo the implementation of a new competitive method for selection of executants established by the law on social procurement, and use the traditional scheme of approval of the state (municipal) assignment.