Have you debugged the crazy printer? Civil and arbitration proceedings, enforcement proceedings
Photo Pravo.Ru
The number of laws adopted by parliament is growing from year to year, and Russians simply do not have time to adapt to the new “rules of the game.” And chaotic amendments to existing codes complicate doing business. So, for example, amendments to the Tax Code are made on average once every two weeks, to the Code of Administrative Offenses - every ten days. Such conclusions were reached by experts from the Center for Strategic Research (CSR) of Alexei Kudrin, who analyzed changes in federal legislation over the past two decades. They propose to combat the instability of regulation in different ways: from “humanely” building a dialogue between factions when discussing initiatives to a “total” moratorium on amending existing laws.
"Mad Printer" is gaining momentum
The study covers the period from January 1, 1994 to July 31, 2016; during this time period, 6,700 federal laws were adopted in Russia ( see diagram), and only 670 of them were basic (that is, they did not provide for the amendment, repeal, suspension or extension of other laws). According to statistics, the number of initiatives adopted by parliament is steadily growing in almost all areas of law, with the exception of international relations (in this area there has been a trend towards a decrease in acts adopted annually). So, if in 1994 80 laws were adopted, then last year there were already 524. The peak of legislative activity fell in 2014- then the Federal Assembly adopted and the head of state approved 558 laws. As of August 1 last year, 594 laws were repealed, of which 122 were basic ones.
1,754 federal laws underwent changes, 4,693 remained unchanged (of which 74 were basic). Moreover, 4621 “new” laws introduced changes or additions to already adopted acts, declared them invalid or suspended them, as was directly stated in their titles (“On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” or “On Amendments to the Federal Law” and etc.), there was no such indication in Law 31. The authors of the study conclude that most often changes were made to the “basic” legislation, and not to “laws on changing laws” or “one-time” acts. Below you can see how the basic laws have changed over time.
Until 2002-2004, Russian legislators mainly adopted new laws, and after that they are still more often involved in editing existing ones. Researchers explain this by the fact that the formation of the legislative system of the Russian Federation took place in two stages. At the first stage, the formation of legislative norms took place, with the parallel establishment of their relationship, and at the second stage (after 2003-2004), the development of the legislative system began. This is a natural result of its interaction with the economic and social system and the system of society as a whole. “For some industries, the second stage begins a year or two after the federal laws and codes that are basic to the relevant industry come into force,” the authors point out.
It is noted that the stability of legislation can no longer be “measured” by changes in “basic” laws, but by how codes change, which “are fundamental laws that cover the most important part of the normative material of a certain branch of legislation and directly regulate a certain sphere of homogeneous social relations ". It is in them that stable, important and typical aspects of a particular legal sphere are recorded, therefore changes in codes are a kind of indicator of how stable the industry they regulate is.
The report highlights that the majority Russian codes are corrected more than once a year. And some are adjusted almost monthly: for example, the Code of Administrative Offences, Tax, Land, Forestry and Criminal Procedure Codes. Exception from general rule is the Customs Code of the Customs Union. As of July 31, 2016, its stability period was 730 days. The authors of the report attribute this to the complexity of the procedure for amending an international document.
Moreover, if in 2010 only the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Tax Code were changed more often than once a month, then by 2016 changes were made just as often to the Criminal Procedure Code, Land and Forestry Codes, for the rest the “period of stability” also decreased. For example, for the agro-industrial complex it decreased by almost half from 189 to 110 days, for the civil-industrial complex - from 72 to 48 days. Now the Code of Administrative Offenses changes on average every 10 days, the Tax Code - every two weeks.
The study revealed another interesting pattern. The number of laws adopted is influenced by two significant political events in the life of the country: parliamentary and presidential elections ( in the analyzed period, federal elections were held 12 times in Russia-approx. ed.). Thus, the new “staffing” of the State Duma provokes an increase in the number of laws adopted in Last year work of the chamber of the previous convocation. And the election of the head of state, on the contrary, “slows down” the adoption of new laws in the election year. If there is a change of president, then after a year the number of initiatives adopted reaches its maximum.
Instability of legislation affects both citizens and businesses
The results of the study were presented for discussion among experts, which took place on January 25 at the Center for Strategic Research. The discussion was attended by legal scholars and practicing lawyers, as well as representatives of business structures. They agreed that the growing instability of legislation is a negative trend. Firstly, due to the frequent changes in the “rules of the game”, people are unable to track whether they are violating legal requirements. As a result, the willingness to comply with these norms decreases. Secondly, the constant amendment of laws limits the planning capabilities of business structures. The greatest difficulties arise when new rules are adopted at the close of the calendar year - this requires a prompt revision of already approved business plans and budgets for the coming year. Similar problems are observed when new reporting requirements are established in anticipation of the submission of reports: government agencies need time to develop new reporting forms, because of this they are sometimes sent to businessmen just a couple of weeks before they are due to be submitted.
Experts also linked the instability of legal regulation with the quality of bills and the speed of their adoption. Now the quality of laws approved in Russia leaves much to be desired, experts say. They are difficult to adequately apply and implement, which provokes more and more changes. Departments are churning out bills, trying to fulfill presidential instructions as quickly as possible, and experts are given a scant time to evaluate legislative initiatives (sometimes the conclusion needs to be prepared virtually within a day). As a result, “raw” bills end up in the Duma and quickly pass through the assembly line of three parliamentary readings: they are often adopted in the first reading in one day, and a maximum of a week is allotted for amendments. In essence, the discussion stage, within which shortcomings could be identified and eliminated, is skipped.
From parliamentary discussion to a moratorium on amending laws
According to experts, it is possible to avoid the instability of regulation by introducing a moratorium or partial restrictions on the amendment of laws. However, such a measure has its own risks, namely the persistence of low-quality or outdated provisions that will only harm businesses and citizens. Another group of specialists proposed correcting defects in already adopted standards using judicial practice, then no new changes will be required. At the same time, experts emphasize, it is necessary to develop mechanisms that could weed out low-quality initiatives. A clear example of this is the procedure for adjusting the Civil Code, which provides for a mandatory stage of assessment of amendments by the Presidential Council for the Codification and Improvement of Civil Legislation. And changes to the Criminal Code can only be made with the approval of the Supreme Court. It would be a good idea to install such “expert filters” for amendments to each basic code, experts say.
At the same time, many of the discussion participants agreed that effective way The development of parliamentary discussion will improve the quality of adopted laws. To achieve this, there must be party and factional competition in the State Duma, otherwise there will be no incentive to thoroughly discuss initiatives, experts say. If the development of competition between factions turns out to be an impossible mission, it is possible to establish a ban on the accelerated consideration of projects outside the regulations, as well as increase the “weight” of the conclusions of the legal department of the State Duma, which consists of “competent specialists,” noted the participants of the CSR meeting. In addition, some experts spoke in favor of a ban on the adoption of laws “on amendments to laws on amendments,” since this form of lawmaking does not allow for a full assessment of the content of the amendments.
The new convocation of the State Duma is also aware of the problems in the quality of lawmaking and is working to solve them, Vedomosti conveys its point of view Alexandra Pozhalova from the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research (ISEPR). For example, the rules of work of the State Duma have undergone changes: now bills cannot be considered in an accelerated manner. For now, there is an informal ban on introducing uncoordinated amendments to codes under the guise of parliamentary amendments, but it will soon acquire legislative force.
Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman advocates parliamentary competition to improve the quality of laws. She believes that if there is no consensus on a controversial draft law, there is a need to debate, attract experts, and submit it for public discussion. As a result, the law is considered more slowly, but it turns out to be more meaningful and thoughtful. In addition, another effective method could be not a hard moratorium on restricting the right of legislative initiative, but a “soft” one - a ban on expedited consideration of projects, limiting their “shelf life” (which the deputies themselves are also already talking about), holding parliamentary hearings on the most important of them.
Civil and arbitration proceedings, enforcement proceedings
Basically, the adoption of laws in this industry from 1994 to 2016 was subject to the same rules that are typical for the approval of federal laws in general. That is, there is an annual trend towards an increase in the number of initiatives adopted. However, there are some differences: for example, local maximums of legislative activity occurred in 2011 and 2015 (in general statistics these are 2010 and 2014), a local minimum - in 2014 (while in the country, on the contrary, there was a peak in the activity of legislators). The 2015 jump could be a consequence of the abolition of the Supreme Arbitration Court in August 2014, which required amendments to the provisions of other laws related to this industry. At the same time, another pattern can be traced: in the period 1994-2003, mainly new acts were adopted, and from 2004 to the middle of last year (the end of the reporting period), amendments were made to existing ones.
"The evolution of the Russian civil and arbitration process in the second decade of the 2000s is characterized by a significant surge in the activity of legislators, significantly changing the procedural institutions laid down at the beginning of the millennium in connection with the adoption of the Civil Procedure and Arbitration Procedure Codes new Russia", notes Oleg Kharitonov, senior lawyer of the arbitration practice of the law firm. 2010-2012 became a period of changes in civil procedural legislation aimed at some unification of approaches judicial system when considering cases in higher authorities according to the model laid down earlier in the arbitration process, the expert says. And since 2014, one can trace the opposite trend, when the arbitration process was partially changed to adapt approaches, in particular, to appealing judicial acts according to the model existing in civil proceedings, the reason for which, of course, was the abolition of the Supreme Arbitration Court and the transfer of its functions to the Supreme Court , the lawyer emphasizes.
According to Kharitonov, 2015-2016 can boast, firstly, of a full-fledged reform in the field of civil procedure and other related legislation in connection with the adoption of a new codified act, the Code of Administrative Procedure, aimed at resolving issues of consideration by courts of general jurisdiction of administrative cases from public legal relations and cases of challenging normative legal acts and acts with normative properties. “This, first of all, entailed the withdrawal of the relevant institutions from the Civil Procedure Code,” the lawyer notes. “Secondly, in connection with the reform of the system of consideration of disputes by arbitration courts during this period, the civil procedural and arbitration procedural codes, as well as the legislation on arbitration, were significantly changed courts and international commercial arbitration."
The development trend of these industries is to gradually create a single process, says lawyer Sofya Karpenkova. “Perhaps this is due to the abolition of the Supreme Arbitration Court and is probably quite predictable, since the concept of a unified procedural code was proposed quite a long time ago,” she continues. “In addition, more and more disputes can be referred to arbitration courts, for example, the legislator allowed the transfer for their consideration of certain categories of corporate disputes. If the specifics of the case allow it to be considered by an arbitration court, then, indeed, the possibility of transfer will significantly relieve the courts' workload." Karpenkova also recalled the recent adoption of the CAS, which included provisions previously regulated by the APC. “Due to the fact that CAS was adopted relatively recently, the practice, as well as the process, is still being formed. And it is through the example of CAS that one can trace the trend towards convergence of processes, which was mentioned above, since CAS combines elements of both processes,” sums up lawyer.
Bankruptcy
Lawyer Sergey Morozov notes the general trend towards codification of the rules governing bankruptcy: the current law on bankruptcy included rules on the insolvency of credit institutions (previously this issue was regulated by a separate law) and on the bankruptcy of citizens, in respect of which proposals were also made on the need to regulate this institution with a special law. At the same time, the legislator continues to develop the institutions of bankruptcy law by introducing numerous amendments to the law, says Morozov. In particular, the greatest activity is manifested in the following issues: 1. regulation of the activities of arbitration managers (this is manifested both in clarifying the requirements for them and in tightening responsibility for improper performance of the duties assigned to the manager by law); 2. enshrining in law new guarantees of the rights of shareholders in the event of bankruptcy of a developer; 3. bringing controlling persons to subsidiary liability: in particular, the legislator somewhat expanded the concept of a controlling person, and also confirmed the validity of judicial practice, which allowed holding controlling persons liable even after the termination of a bankruptcy case.
“The trend towards the development of bankruptcy legislation by introducing amendments to it will obviously continue,” Morozov believes. “Currently, the State Duma is considering a number of projects proposing significant changes to this law. In particular, the issues of replacing creditor queues with more differentiated classes (by analogy with the USA), restriction of participation in the bankruptcy case of creditors affiliated with the debtor, and the use of the so-called “seizure” pledge in the bankruptcy case.”
Taxes and fees
The dynamics of lawmaking in this area repeat the general activity of the adoption of federal laws (deviations were noted only in 2002, 2005 and 2007). At the same time, in the period from 1994 to 2002 it is impossible to talk about a sustainable legislative policy, the report emphasizes. Since 1999, the first part of the Tax Code came into force, since 2001 - the second. Since 2003, legislators have mainly been making amendments to existing acts regulating this industry.
Entrepreneurial activity
The number of new laws regulating the business sector changed differently during the reporting period than the total number of federal initiatives adopted. The local minimum in this industry did not coincide with the general one in 2003, and local maximums were the same only in 1999 and 2007. The report associates the increase in the number of laws affecting the interests of entrepreneurs in 1995-1996 with the adoption of the first and second parts of the Civil Code, which required the adoption of federal laws provided for by this code and bringing them into line with those already in force. Moreover, amendments began to prevail over the adoption of new laws in 2003.
Judicial system, advocacy, notary office, justice authorities
The authors of the study associate the peak of legislative activity in this area, which occurred in 2007, with the adoption of amendments to the first article of the law “On the total number of justices of the peace and the number of judicial districts in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.” This number of changes adopted by individual laws during the year is exceptional. The law was adopted in 1999, in 1999-2006 it was changed 10 times, and in the period from 2008 to 2016 it underwent 42 amendments. This is explained by the fact that since 2007 a new version of clause 4 of Art. 4 of the Law on Justices of the Peace, according to which the upper limit of the population per court district was reduced from 30,000 to 23,000 people, which led to a change in the number of judicial districts in many regions of the country. Other amendments to this law were made in order to adapt the placement of magistrates' courts to the uneven distribution of the population across the territories of the subjects. For the first time, the number of laws on changes exceeded the number of new laws in this industry in 2003, but this policy became sustainable in 2006.
Civil legislation
Local maximums in the adoption of laws in this industry coincided with the nationwide ones in 1995, 2004, 2007 and 2014; local minimums were different only in 2003 and 2008. The dynamics of the adoption of new acts in the field of civil legislation generally demonstrates dependence on two main factors: the general activity of the adoption of new laws and the industry development policy.
From 2002 to the present, federal laws in this area are more “changing” than “conceptually new,” notes Dmitry Zheleznov, Ph.D. Sc., lawyer, lecturer at the University. O. E. Kutafina (MSAL). “On the one hand, this is good,” he continues. “A large-scale reform of civil legislation is being carried out, regulation is becoming more modern and adequate. The legislation reflects legal regulation newly emerging social relations. On the other hand, it's bad. Amendments to acts of civil legislation are often chaotic, poorly designed and hastily adopted. This circumstance has already led to countermeasures - not so long ago it was prohibited to make “non-systemic” changes to the Civil Code (see " "). Consequently, at the state level it was recognized that there are too many such amendments, concludes Zheleznov. He believes that changing such a fundamental industry should take place “without obvious biases in any direction.” “New laws must be adopted, but changes must also be made to those already in force. And all this should be exactly in the proportion that will avoid confusion, contradictions and conflicts in their application,” the lawyer emphasizes.
Criminal, criminal procedural, criminal executive legislation
The development of lawmaking in this area generally follows the general trends in the adoption of laws. However, from 1994 to 2002 it is impossible to talk about the predominance of any legislative policy in the field of criminal justice, since there are no long periods with a predominance of new laws or laws on amendments ( see diagram). But since 2003, the policy of amendments has clearly become dominant. In the study, this is due to the fact that since July 2002, a significant part of the Code of Criminal Procedure (the last of the three codes regulating this area) came into force.
In September-October, the US Congress may consider and introduce several sanctions bills against Russia at once. In July alone, a number of congressmen (including heavyweights) introduced five bills, several more are being prepared - it seems that Congress is also becoming a “mad printer,” at least on issues where there is even the slightest mention of Russia.
Such a wave of manufactured products has one important feature - it begins to be chaotic, unsystematic and reactive. Which reduces its effectiveness (and in the US they are already saying that sanctions against Russia are working, but they are not working well). And if so, the temptation arises to “put the pressure on” by adopting a couple, three, or dozen more sanctions acts. Which further chaotizes the situation, without bringing the United States any closer to its stated goal.
If you look at the sanctions that the United States imposed against Iran (or rather, they returned to the previous sanctions regime), you can see that they are economical and systematic. Each point hits Iran's key vulnerabilities extremely painfully. The main vulnerability is that Iran's aggressive expansionist policies are driven by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and sanctions are destroying the economic and financial stability of the IRGC, cutting off its access to resources, preventing the Corps from trading its oil and receiving foreign currency. Obama, having introduced the sanctions regime against Iran, made it so balanced and systemic that Trump, who follows all Obama’s decisions like a battering ram, did not invent anything here - the design turned out to be so good that it was not needed at all edit. There are, of course, a number of pitfalls related to the fact that Iran has, albeit limited, experience in how to circumvent these sanctions that are already familiar to it, but the design itself, from the point of view of its balance, is almost ideal.
The Americans' sanctions against Russia are, indeed, getting worse and worse, since they are of a momentary (largely reflexive) nature, and besides, they are, rather, in the nature of an internal American political struggle - Republicans against Democrats, and everyone together - against Trump. That's why some surprising things are starting to pop up in Russia sanctions bills, such as banning the administration from deciding to withdraw from NATO without the approval of two-thirds of Congress. Where is Russia, and where is the US withdrawal from NATO?
For the Russian nobility, which has already come under sanctions, this, of course, is still not much consolation. So far, Deripaska can be considered the most affected, although other holders of mafia common funds have also been hit hard. Ahead is a blow to systemically important banks with state participation - primarily Sberbank, VTB, VEB, a number of recently nationalized problem banks, which are being turned into agents for the implementation of certain state programs. Americans, apparently, are aware of the low effectiveness of the measures taken, and compensate for the quality of the decisions made with their quantity.
However, one should not delude oneself - Russia here does not act as a subject, but rather as an object of American policy (more precisely, a fierce struggle within the American establishment). Trump is a destroyer. He is demolishing the structures created by the globalists, while trying to clear the ground for Pax Americana 2.0. In this sense, it is difficult to position his opponents only from the point of view of party affiliation - there are also plenty of globalists in the ranks of the Republicans. Trump's main task is to defeat Europe and China, and not some kind of Russia. In our country, all the actions of the United States are presented as pathetic attempts to shake the Caudillo, who monumentally tramples the heavens with his head of all times and peoples, but in this case these are phantom imperial pains - today’s Russia has ceased to set its goal to catch up even with Portugal,
Trump needs to solve a whole system of equations: to free the European market from Russian hydrocarbons and Chinese technological products, without completely bringing down the Putin regime, so that it does not go under China, undoubtedly strengthening it. Trump is solving the Chinese problem through a trade war, the purpose of which is to transfer high-tech enterprises to American jurisdiction. However, here, too, the collapse of China is not a priority for him: it is enough if the Chinese leadership changes personalities - the tough Xi leaves, and the much more negotiable Li Keqiang (for example) comes in. We are not talking about finding collaborators in the Chinese elite, we are talking about more flexible ones who are able to fix losses without bringing their size to complete bankruptcy. Trump is not at all interested in the bankruptcy of China.
Only after achieving the results he needs can Trump hold negotiations with each loser (Europe and China in the first place), where he will dictate the terms of a new peace treaty. Any war always looks the same - first the defeat of the enemy and the act of surrender, then a peace conference with a new “eternal peace”. The war that Trump is waging today with the emerging and already standing global world is no exception. So far, no deviations from general principles have been observed in its implementation.
In a few days, the sixth convocation of the State Duma will finish its work. It will undoubtedly go down in the history of the country: with so many prohibitive and openly repressive laws, the Russian parliament modern history haven't taken it yet. Just a few months after the start of the current convocation, the State Duma received the name “frenzied printer.” However, by the end of the term, even this name was not enough: the printer turned into a much more dangerous weapon.
Photo from the State Duma website
Saying goodbye to the sixth convocation of the State Duma, the “Political Council” decided to recall the most odious and scandalous laws adopted by the Russian parliament since 2012. The main problem was to select from the legislative heritage of the Duma only 10 laws that literally changed the country. As we understand, in reality there were much more such laws. Our version of ten is as follows.
Municipal reform
We should start not with the numerous bans (we’ll talk about them too), but with the laws that changed the political landscape of Russia. The first and main thing here is a package of laws on “municipal reform” (a whole series of amendments to Federal Law No. 131 on local self-government). The fundamental innovation adopted by the State Duma is that now the city management system is determined not by the cities themselves, but by regional authorities - governors and legislative assemblies. This was the first step. The second step was that governors were allowed to abolish mayoral elections, replacing direct popular vote with appointment by competition. Of course, many governors took advantage of this opportunity and eliminated elected mayors in the bud. The people were not particularly interested in the reform, did not protest and, it seems, did not even notice how they were deprived of the right to choose city government. Local self-government, already weak, turned out to be completely integrated into the notorious vertical.
Selective filters
Other politically important innovations in legislation are related to amendments to the laws on elections of governors, regional parliaments and the State Duma. On the one hand, the legislation seems to have been liberalized - there are more parties, formal requirements for election participants have been relaxed. But in fact, such an innovation was invented as municipal and party filters, which allowed the authorities to literally filter the lists of candidates, allowing only loyal and not dangerous politicians to participate in the elections. To run for governor, a candidate needs to collect signatures from municipal deputies (the vast majority of whom are controlled by United Russia). A political party can participate in elections without collecting signatures only if it has representatives in lower parliaments. As a result, a Jesuitical and mocking system emerged: having returned the elections of governors, the government through the hands of the State Duma actually preserved their appointment, simply making the whole procedure more complex, cumbersome and outwardly similar to real elections.
We must not forget about another filter - the ban on candidates with criminal records from participating in elections. Adopted under the slogan of fighting crime in power, this filter in fact made it possible to prevent the most principled oppositionists from participating in the elections. The main victim of this law is Alexei Navalny, who is now barred from any election campaign.
"Dima Yakovlev's Law"
Officially, the law is called “On measures of influence on persons involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation.” Behind this meaningless name lies a law that prohibits US citizens from adopting children from Russia. According to popular belief, it was this document that became a turning point in the history of the current convocation of the State Duma - it was demonstrably adopted against the backdrop of heated public discussions with the complete unanimity of deputies. Formally, the law did not affect politics and power, but concerned the most vulnerable residents of the country - orphans who have little chance of finding a family. And yet, the document was adopted, becoming a symbol of a new era: from that time on, anti-Americanism became one of the main ideological principles, and the State Duma showed its readiness to carry out any will of the Kremlin, even the most ambiguous.
Law on rallies
The first prohibitive law of the sixth convocation of the State Duma was the “law on rallies” - fundamental amendments to the Federal Law “On meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions and pickets”, adopted after a wave of street protests and clashes on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The law, firstly, repeatedly increased fines for violations of the procedure for holding street actions, and, secondly, expanded the list of violations itself, which can now be included in any rally if desired. Two years later, the legislation on rallies was tightened even more - now for repeated violations during street protests you can get a real prison sentence. There are already the first people convicted under this article in Russia. In a political sense, the “law on rallies” made the tactics of legal street protest impossible for the opposition: the government has the ability to refuse to hold any rally it does not like, and can send organizers and participants to prison for uncoordinated actions. A repetition of the “protest wave” now seems unlikely.
Law on "gay propaganda"
Another ideologically important law is the so-called “gay propaganda” law. Thanks to him, in 2013, Article 6.21 “Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” appeared in the Code of Administrative Offenses. This article provides punishment for “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors, expressed in the dissemination of information aimed at developing in minors non-traditional sexual attitudes, the attractiveness of non-traditional sexual relations, a distorted idea of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations, or the imposition of information about non-traditional sexual relations.” , arousing interest in such relationships, if these actions do not contain a criminal offense.”
Since the adoption of the law, many court decisions have already been made in the country under this article, which have shown that the courts interpret the concept of “gay propaganda” quite broadly, often issuing fines for any positive opinion about LGBT people or an attempt to give a voice to the gay community. But what is more important here is not so much the court decisions as the political significance of the law: from that moment on, homophobia became part of the ideological course of the Russian government and one of the most important points of demarcation with the West.
Foreign Agents Law
Legislation on “foreign agents” was one of the first to be developed, back in 2012. According to the law, any NPO that receives funding from abroad and engages in political activities must receive the status of “foreign agent.” In addition to the humiliating status, this provides for a stricter attitude towards him on the part of regulatory authorities. The law has become the most important instrument of government pressure on civil society - it covered not only organizations related to politics (for example, the Golos association, which is engaged in independent election observation), but also completely non-political NGOs - for example, the Dynasty educational foundation, involved in supporting science and education. The political significance of the law is that it cut off public organizations from foreign funding, forcing many of them to ask for financial assistance from the state. The state does not refuse such assistance, but it is obvious that in exchange for material support, the government demands complete loyalty from NGOs.
"Lugovoy's Law"
The law introduced by deputy Andrei Lugovoi is also called the law on extrajudicial blocking of websites. Actually, that says it all - the document stipulates that the Prosecutor General’s Office may demand that access to any website be closed if it finds calls for mass unrest or extremist activity there. You can challenge the blocking in court, but it is not so easy to prove to Russian judges that the Prosecutor General’s Office may be wrong in something. In fact, the principle itself is important - the authorities have the opportunity to quickly, without trial, close any website. Now the Prosecutor General is asking that regional prosecutors also receive the right to initiate blocking. If this happens, there will clearly be more sites closed without trial. However, the new convocation of the State Duma will have to work on this.
Law on “propaganda of separatism”
In 2013, the State Duma introduced a new article into the Criminal Code - “Public calls for actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.” In its current version, this article provides for a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The courts have already handed down the first sentences under this article. The law, obviously, was supposed to put an end to any discussions about the territorial composition of the Russian Federation, prohibiting even the very conversations about the right of certain regions to self-determination. This law became especially relevant in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation. Any calls to return Crimea to Ukraine are officially a criminal offense in Russia.
Law on the “registry of prohibited sites”
Now, in 2016, this law seems almost harmless, but in fact it served as the starting point for restricting the Internet by the state. After the adoption of the document, a register of sites appeared in Russia, access to which is limited on the territory of the Russian Federation. Initially, it was supposed to include sites that promote drug use, suicide, or contain child pornography. The register is maintained by Roskomnadzor, which, precisely after the adoption of this law, actually turned into the state’s main instrument for limiting the Internet. For more than three years, the law began to work in full force, restricting access to sites was put into practice - once Wikipedia was almost closed, and access to Rutreker was prohibited. The recent scandal with " suicide groups” on the social network “VKontakte” is also a consequence of this law, which prohibited “suicide propaganda.”
Postponement of elections to the State Duma
The list of “bad” laws ends with a document that, it would seem, concerns only a narrow political community and, at first glance, is not so bad. We are talking about postponing the State Duma elections from December to September 2018. Why this was done is still not very clear: apparently, in order to move the campaign to the summer, when voters are on vacation. But this is not important, what is important is that shortening the term of office of State Duma deputies by two and a half months did not fit into the Constitution. The country's basic law simply does not provide for such a possibility of postponing elections. However, the State Duma did this, enlisting the support of the Constitutional Court, which allowed the elections to be postponed “for constitutionally significant purposes.” From a political point of view, the law proclaimed a new principle: “if the Constitution does not allow it, but the authorities really want it, then they can do it.” It can be expected that, using the same scheme, the country's leadership will be able to make some other changes that do not fit into the Constitution - for example, regarding elections or the terms of office of the president.
Speaking about all these laws adopted by the State Duma, we must not forget that many of them were actually initiated not by parliament, but by the presidential administration (or at least were coordinated with it). In addition, all laws were approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin. So it would probably be wrong to consider the State Duma the only source or focus of evil. However, this is not a reason to absolve her of responsibility.
There are five administrative charges in one day, one of them is for an episode for which the fine has already been paid. Dmitry Vysotsky, editor-in-chief of the Murmansk news agency SeverPost, is sure that the sudden activity of Roskomnadzor is not without reason, the agency is acting on orders. The goal is to close the agency.
SeverPost is one of the few independent publications in the region. For 4 years it has become the most quoted media in the region. In terms of efficiency, it will give many a head start. They are critical of officials, and the agency has been sued more than once. Sometimes offended characters in publications tried to “solve the problem” without going to trial—even a conspiracy film was shown on local TV about the hypothetical connection between the editor-in-chief and the mythical “Banderaites.” Court decisions varied, but no attempt has yet been made to close the publication.
“It’s obvious to me: what’s happening now is an order,” says Vysotsky. — When I received all the protocols, I called Proshkin ( Head of the regional department of Roskomnadzor.— T.B.), I say: “What if I close the media now, given such pressure?” He blossomed: “Oh, do you want to close? I’ll tell you how.” Well, the next letter comes from them, from which everything is generally clear: supposedly our charter contradicts the law on the media. They are clearly looking for grounds to revoke the registration certificate.
Dmitry received his first fine about a week before the others. The case is crazy: the publication illustrated the announcement of the celebration of Fisherman’s Day in Murmansk with a poster for the event sent from the regional government. There was no age marking on the poster. No, nothing seditious was expected at the celebration, but Roskomnadzor considered the publication a gross violation of the law - however, not on the part of the authors of the poster, but on the part of the journalists. Vysotsky was fined for this as an official. When Dmitry tried to present a scan of a cover letter from the government - they say, I couldn’t add this marking myself in Photoshop to the finished poster - he received the answer: no one will fine the government, since it is not a media outlet. And SeverPost will be there. And a week later they drew up a new protocol on the same episode - this is already legal.
The remaining four protocols are all based on the same publication. The agency reported the abuse of a child that ended up on YouTube. The publication became the reason for initiating a criminal case on the fact of torture. But the RKN considered the presence in the text of the note of a hyperlink to the video itself, containing obscene language, a violation of the law and intends to fine it four times: the legal entity and the chief editor received a protocol for using obscene language. The video itself was not even re-uploaded to the SeverPost website, and one more - for violating the Federal Law “On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development”, in common parlance - the “law on propaganda”. Despite the fact that the link was marked “Strictly 18+”, moreover, a similar marking appears in the “header” of the news agency itself. However, the experts, whose conclusion formed the basis of the protocol, apparently considered that children would certainly violate this restriction, click on the link and be traumatized by what they heard. If the court listens to the position of the supervisory authority, the total fines could reach several million, after which the agency will simply have nothing to continue working.
Having received after all this a letter about non-compliance with the law of the IA charter, Dmitry realized that the war was about survival. I called the RKN and asked why the department had not been interested in the charter for the previous four years.
— All this time we have been building our functionality. And now we’ve earned the full amount,” said the head of the RKN, Nikolai Proshkin.
At the same time, the agency was denied accreditation by the Murmansk mayor’s office, and the press service of the regional government, three hours before the scheduled time, without explanation, canceled the interview with the governor, which had been agreed upon four months in advance. Journalists are sure that they are being turned into marginalized people in preparation for the revocation of their registration certificate. Next year there will be gubernatorial elections in the region, and the cleansing of the information field has obviously already begun.