Legal issue: whether the contested provision of the law is constitutional if it serves as a ground for prohibiting the acquisition of hunting fire-arms with rifled barrel by citizens who violated the rules of hunting, the rules of manufacturing, sale, transfer, acquisition, collecting or exhibiting, registration, bearing, transportation and use of arms, as well as trade thereof.
Ratio decidendi: the Court came to the conclusion that the contested provision, being an administrative precautionary measure, is unconstitutional only to the extent in which it, by virtue of its uncertainty creating opportunities for an unclear and arbitrary application, allows considering this prohibition as being established perpetually – regardless of the degree of public danger and gravity of the committed offense and also of the term within which the person is deemed to be subject to administrative or criminal punishment.
The Court has obligated the federal legislator to make necessary changes to legal regulation and determined that until they are made the right to apply for the license to acquire arms can be exercised by a person upon the expiry of the term within which the person is deemed to be subject to administrative punishment (Article 4.6 of the Code on Administrative Offenses) or, respectively, upon the cancellation or clearance of the criminal record in accordance with Article 86 of the Criminal Code. All the same, the Court did not exclude the right of the federal legislator to define the duration of this prohibition otherwise and establish the possibility of its perpetual application for certain kinds of offenses.