Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 31 – The Russian
justice ministry has posted online a draft of its revised Russian
Administrative Code (regulation.gov.ru/projects/List/AdvancedSearch#npa=99059).
In its initial reaction, the SOVA human rights analytic center says that some
of the changes can only be welcomed but that others are troubling.
Because
many of Russia’s anti-extremist measures are included in the Administrative
Code, SOVA regularly tracks it because any changes in language or application
can have major consequences for the state of human and religious rights in the
Russian Federation. The changes now on view are both encouraging and
discouraging.
On
the encouraging side, SOVA says, is the elimination of the hitherto total ban
on any use of Nazi symbols, including by scholars and commentators who were
only talking about the past. Such use will now be exempt from administrative
sanction unless it appears intended to promote fascist ideas (sova-center.ru/misuse/news/lawmaking/2020/01/d42014/).
The ambiguity in the new text, the
analytic center says, raises the possibility that it will be misused. Similar
ambiguities continue in several other of the relevant paragraphs, reflecting a
broader problem in Russian law which is often written in a way that allows it
to be applied by the courts in ways that a reasonable reading of would not
permit.
On the discouraging side – and this
may come to matter more and more as the number of administrative violations continues
to increase – the statue of limitations for the application of provisions of the
code has been extended to a year, up from three months in most cases – and to
six years in the case of violations of laws prohibiting actions classified as
terrorism.
That means that the authorities can reach back in time more easily to punish or intimidate those falling under the terms of the administrative code.
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