{"id":7777,"date":"2013-09-30T14:40:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T10:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=7777"},"modified":"2013-12-11T13:10:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-11T09:10:38","slug":"the-court-declines-all-appeals-of-adc-memorial-court-hearings-adc-memorial-vs-procurators-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/the-court-declines-all-appeals-of-adc-memorial-court-hearings-adc-memorial-vs-procurators-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"The court declines all appeals of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d- court hearings ADC “Memorial\u201d vs. procurators continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Until now ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d remains the only non-governmental organization in Russia which is being persecuted for its alternative report to the United Nations Organization in two different ways simultaneously. <\/strong>Procurators continue their attempts to get an administrative court ruling<\/a> against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d for supposedly breaking \u00a0the law on NGOs and \u201cde facto serving as a foreign agent\u201d without being registered as such in the list of the Ministry of justice, while at the same time they also initiated a court case<\/a> against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d demanding that \u201cin the interests of undefined group of persons\u201d the court should oblige ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d to be listed as a foreign agent. Now the court hearings in a civil case<\/a> against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d go parallel to the procedures on an administrative case<\/a> \u2013 in both cases the charges presented by the procurator\u2019s office are based on its analysis of the 2012 report \u201cRoma people, migrants, activists \u2013 victims of police arbitrariness\u201d.<\/p>\n

On September 23 another round of court hearings in the case initiated by the procurator\u2019s office in the interests of \u201cundefined group of persons\u201d was held in Leninsky district court of Saint Petersburg, while the same court is about to hold hearings on the administrative case concerning violation of article 19 section 34 of the Code on administrative violations on October 7.<\/strong> Procurator\u2019s office of the Admiralty district of Saint Petersburg will present the same charges and will argue that it is unacceptable to criticize the arbitrary actions of the police, while at the same time it will demand registration of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d as a foreign agent and payment of an enormous penalty for the same observations, conclusions and recommendations, that were presented by ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d in its human rights report.<\/p>\n

On October 14 we will have another hearing on the civil case against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d, when the first court ruling is expected on whether the arguments of the procurator\u2019s office are legally grounded and whether ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d is obliged to register as a foreign agent. This court ruling will no doubt be a very important legal precedent, which also concerns other NGOs in Russia.<\/strong> In earlier court rulings involving<\/a> other NGOs, the courts have already ruled on several occasions that NGOs were guilty of violating this law in terms of serving as a foreign agent (article 19, section 34), but this alone hadn\u2019t obliged NGOs to register as such in the list of the Ministry of justice, although penalties were paid for this violation (ranging from Rb300,000 to Rb500,000 for juridical persons and Rb100,000 to Rb300,000 on top of that for the heads of these NGOs as physical persons). ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d also faces a similar penalty in the administrative case against our organization, but a civil court case against our NGO, which doesn\u2019t agree to consider itself a foreign agent, is even more potentially dangerous because it is the only legal way for the procurator\u2019s office to force an NGO to register in the list of foreign agents.<\/p>\n

Human rights defenders do not accept the legal right of the procurator\u2019s office to act in the interests of \u201can undefined group of persons\u201d in this case