Judgment of the Constitutional Court of 8 April 2014 № 10-П on the review of constitutionality of the provisions of paragraph 6 of Article 2 and paragraph 7 of Article 32 of the Federal Law “On Non-Commercial Organisations”, part 6 of Article 29 of the Federal Law “On Public Associations” and part 1 of Article 19.34 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation in connection with complaints of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, citizens Smirensky, Yukechev, Kuz’mina and the Foundation “Kostroma Centre for Public Initiatives”
- Court:
- Constitutional Court
Dissenting opinion:
The contested provisions do not conform to the Constitution. They contradict themselves: for instance, a NGO with a foreign source of financing, which forms zero tolerance to corruption behaviour in contrast to the complacency of the government with respect to the problem of corruption, may be automatically held to be an organisation performing the functions of a “foreign agent”, and, as a result, be brought to administrative liability. The definition of “political activity” contained in the Law on non-commercial organizations does not allow answering unequivocally and consistently to the question which activities may be regarded as “political” ones. The legislation treats non-commercial organisations performing functions of a foreign agent in a way which implies a negative attitude to such organisations on the part of the State. The contested provisions clearly originate in the 1939 US law called FARA, which at the moment of adoption was mainly leveled against Nazi activities in the USA before WWII.
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