 Source: HRO.org (info)
* * * Currently, regulatory agencies, headed by the Public Prosecutor's Office, are carrying out inspections of the activities of non-profit organisations throughout the whole of Russia. Also taking part in the inspections are the Interior Ministry, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecoms, Information Technology and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor), the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), the Emergencies Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Migration Service, the Justice Ministry and the Federal Service for Fiscal and Budgetary Supervision (Rosfinnadzor), making a total of 10 separate departments. In most regions up to 100 NGOs have been affected by the inspections, including social, environmental, educational, research, religious, children's and human rights organisations. The total number of organisations that have been inspected comes to several thousand. The Public Prosecutor’s Office says that the inspections are being conducted according to a plan approved by the Prosecutor General's Office in December 2012, and as a preventive measure. However, unlike the list of legal entities inspected by other regulatory agencies, the plans of the Public Prosecutor's Office were not made available to the public. The organisations were given no opportunity to prepare, which negated the preventive nature of the inspections. Meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor's Offices are asking for information about activities for the period 2010-2013 to be submitted, and in Voronezh Region for 2009 too. During March and April the Prosecutor General's Office twice officially announced that the inspections of NGOs were being conducted under the federal law "On Combating Extremist Activities," even though no information about violations of the anti-extremism legislation has been presented for a single organisation. Later, on 10 April, at a meeting with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Prosecutor General gave a different explanation for the reasons behind the inspections, saying that they were being conducted under the federal law "On Non-Profit Organisations," specifically the part concerning the legal regulation of organisations acting as foreign agents. In accordance with this law, the body responsible for monitoring the activities of non-profit organisations is the Ministry of Justice. President Vladimir Putin told the press that from December 2012 until March 2013, 654 non-profit organisations had received 28 billion roubles from abroad. The source of these figures was not revealed, but in all likelihood they came from the Federal Service for Financial Oversight. The list of organisations together with the sums received was not published either, even though this information could not possibly contain any banking, commercial or other legally confidential information. In most regions the public prosecutors' inspections of NGOs are formal in nature. Pubic Prosecutors Offices phone or fax to request founding documents and the accounts of the organisation for the tax authorities and judicial bodies, without taking the trouble to get them from the agencies themselves. In several regions, Rostov Region, Krasnodar Territory and St. Petersburg, the inspections are quite heavy-handed. Doors to the office are blocked, office equipment is confiscated and employees are forced to give explanations about the organisation's activities. Organisations and church parishes are being fined up to 500,000 roubles. In St. Petersburg organisations have been charged for failing to keep a log of fire drills, because of an order to have the office disinfected of rats, and for not having a lampshade on the ceiling light. The Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights has already made its stance clear both with regard to the lack of information about the legal grounds for the mass inspections and the unacceptability of the form they are taking in some instances. The federal law On the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation gives it the right to conduct inspections of legal entities only if they have information about a violation of the law having been committed by each organisation being inspected. It is inconceivable that the Public Prosecutor's Office has in its possession such information about the thousands of NGOs who regularly submit the required accounts to the regulatory authorities and whose banking revenues are routinely monitored by the financial oversight bodies. In addition, the federal law On the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation and instructions of the Prosecutor General's Office both prohibit public prosecutors interfering in the affairs of legal entities without having reasonable grounds for doing so, or to engage other regulatory authorities to do so on their behalf. The mere fact of receiving funding from abroad is not enough to force an NGO to register as a foreign agent, since the law contains a second proviso: the organisation must also be involved in some form of political activity. That is not how educational, research, judicial or religious activities can be described, nor activities to monitor public authorities, in other words the type of work the overwhelming majority of the organisations being inspected are involved in. As a result of the ill-considered, hasty decisions of the public prosecutor's offices, which have resulted in a run-away campaign against NGOs and caused a public outcry both at home and abroad, the image of the public authorities has suffered a serious blow and significant damage has been caused to their partnership with civil society. In many ways, this was made possible because of the legal vagueness contained in the two federal laws. The federal law On the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation contains no regulations of the state functions of inspections by prosecutors. Neither the law nor the instructions of the Prosecutor General's Office contain any indication of the possible grounds for conducting an inspection, how long they can last, how often they can be carried out, the powers of the public prosecutors while they are being conducted or the rights and obligations of the targets of the inspections. The most important federal law, On Protecting the Rights of Legal Entities or Individual Entrepreneurs During the Conducting of State Oversight (Supervision) and Municipal Oversight, which regulates scheduled and unscheduled inspections by supervisory and monitoring agencies, does not cover the activities of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The lack of clear regulations leaves the door open for them to be abused by public officials. The federal law On Non-Profit Organisations, in the section that deals with the legal regulation of foreign agents, gives a woefully inadequate definition of political activity. Its legal vagueness does not allow the actions of officials to be predicted, threatens the unwarranted application of the law against the widest possible range of NGOs, and in the final analysis creates additional tension in society. The incorrect wording of these legal norms has caught the attention, in particular, of the Russian Minister of Justice and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, who has just concluded a visit to Russia. It is clear that socially useful activities, for which the vast majority of Russian NGOs were founded and in which they are involved, are not targeted at achieving political goals. However, depriving non-governmental organisations of the opportunity to exercise public oversight of state bodies, influence the policies of the authorities and take part in managing state affairs would mean abolishing the constitutional freedom of the activities of public associations and other democratic values. Taking the aforementioned into account, we recommend that: 1. The Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation submit to the Council information about the 654 non-profit organisations who, according to an announcement in the press by the Russian President and the Prosecutor General's Office, received funding from abroad to conduct domestic political activities, together with the amounts involved and the sources of the funding. 2. The Prosecutor General's Office report to the public on the information about mass violations of the law by non-profit organisations it has it in its possession, and also on the results of the inspections, including the number of NGOs inspected, the number and nature of the violations uncovered, and the measures taken in response to each violation. 3. The Prosecutor General's Office set up and hold a public discussion and approve an order which regulates in detail the grounds and procedure for conducting inspections by the Public Prosecutor's Office (alternatively: elaborate and hold a public discussion of the draft amendments to the federal law On the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation and/or to federal law N294 On Protecting the Rights of Legal Entities or Individual Entrepreneurs During the Conducting of State Oversight (Supervision) and Municipal Oversight). 4. The Prosecutor General's Office consider all complaints of misconduct by the Public Prosecutor's Office during inspections or heavy-handedness in the conducting of inspections, take measures to respond to each confirmed instance and give an account of them to the public. 5. The Prosecutor General's Office and other supervisory bodies stop requesting information from NGOs in the course of inspections which is otherwise available using inter-agency cooperation. 6. The Prosecutor General's Office and other supervisory bodies, in preparing mass inspections of NGOs, consult with the Council and the Human Rights Ombudsman in order to avoid discrediting the non-profit sector in general and undermining the partnership between NGOs and the authorities. 7. The Council as a matter of priority put together a working group to develop suggestions on introducing amendments to the federal law On Non-Profit Organisations regarding clarification of the concept "political activity." 8. The Prosecutor General's Office and other supervisory bodies take measures to prevent leaks to the media of information about upcoming unscheduled inspections and not allow journalists, who are not parties of state control (supervision), to accompany public officials who are conducting inspections. |
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