Addressing a gathering of senior law-enforcement officials in the Kremlin, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said the office urgently needed a regulatory framework to streamline its activities.
As things currently stand, "the Prosecutor's Office opens criminal cases and investigates them by itself; the prosecutor oversees his own work, and supports the prosecution in court," he said.
Gryzlov suggested placing the first deputy prosecutor general in charge of the investigation committee, and said the new division should be given a large degree of autonomy so that it can conduct inquiries without interference from prosecutors.
"There should be no means for prosecutors to interfere in the investigatory process."
The Duma speaker also said the committee should have a network of territorial agencies, with their heads appointed by the central committee's chief.
"Such transformations will make it possible to provide external control of the Prosecutor's Office, not only on offenses being investigated by the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, and the Federal Drug Control Service, but on major crimes that would be probed by the investigation committee of the Prosecutor General's Office," he said.
