{"id":9162,"date":"2014-04-10T17:47:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T13:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=9162"},"modified":"2015-02-03T15:11:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T12:11:19","slug":"constitutional-court-sees-no-violations-in-the-law-on-foreign-agents-saint-petersburg-court-insists-adc-memorial-should-register-as-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/constitutional-court-sees-no-violations-in-the-law-on-foreign-agents-saint-petersburg-court-insists-adc-memorial-should-register-as-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional court sees no violations in the law on \u201cforeign agents\u201d, Saint-Petersburg court insists ADC \u201cMemorial&#8221; should register as one"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:WordDocument>\n<w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n<w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n<w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n<w:Compatibility>\n<w:BreakWrappedTables\/>\n<w:SnapToGridInCell\/>\n<w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>\n<w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>\n<w:DontGrowAutofit\/>\n<\/w:Compatibility>\n<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>\n<\/w:WordDocument>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><\/p>\n<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n<\/w:LatentStyles>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!-- [if gte mso 10]>\n\n\n\n<style>\n \/* Style Definitions *\/\n table.MsoNormalTable\n\t{mso-style-name:\"\u041e\u0431\u044b\u0447\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0442\u0430\u0431\u043b\u0438\u0446\u0430\";\n\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\n\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\n\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\n\tmso-style-parent:\"\";\n\tmso-padding-alt:0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt;\n\tmso-para-margin:0mm;\n\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\n\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\n\tfont-size:10.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\n\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\n\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\n\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}\n<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">On April 8, 2014 Constitutional court of the Russian Federation announced its decision regarding the appeal made by human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin concerning violation of constitutional rights on NGOs, which were charged with \u201cperforming functions of foreign agents\u201d. Constitutional court found no violations of Constitution in the requirement for NGOs, which receive money from foreign nationals or stateless persons and are involved in political activities, to register in a special list of NGOs and a requirement for these NGOs to bear the title of \u201cforeign agents\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Constitutional court has stated that such requirements help to make the work of NGOs \u201ctransparent\u201d, which in no way infringes on their operations. All the arguments of the NGOs, which suffered from the adopted law on \u201cforeign agents\u201d, were turned down, although NGOs claimed that such a stigma would make their work impossible, since nobody would want to work with \u201cforeign agents\u201d and that any publications of NGOs with such a title will not be considered trustworthy. In fact Constitutional court sided with a false notion that the NGOs, which receive foreign financing for their human rights projects, service some \u201cforeign request\u201c (and it is completely unclear how such NGOs can work for \u201cstateless persons\u201d\u00a0 and which states could be interested in this).<script src=\"\"><\/script><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Just a few hours after the ruling of the Constitutional court in such a significant legal case, Saint Petersburg city court considered <a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/www\/8574.html\/?lang=en\">an appeal<\/a> by ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d on the earlier ruling by Leninsky district court, which had ruled on December 12, 2013 that \u201cMemorial\u201d is an \u201cNGO performing functions of a foreign agent\u201d. Judge Gavrilova refused to let Stefania Kulayeva, head of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d, participate in court hearings, although legal representatives authorized by the same Kulayeva were allowed to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Lawyers Tseytlina and Koroteyev, who represented ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d in this case, in fact were not allowed to state their arguments in full. The judge has repeatedly and rudely interrupted them, depriving them of possibility to finish their arguments or even single sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The procurator\u2019s speech, on the contrary, was met with no objections by the judge, although the procurator\u2019s office representative made numerous mistakes or consciously distorted facts, stating, among other things, that administrative persecution of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d had been stopped due to expiration of prescription period, while in fact <a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/www\/8396.html\/?lang=en\">courts of three instances<\/a> had confirmed both illegality of the procurator\u2019s claims against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d and the legality of the check, which had been carried out in March 2013. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Procurator Dmitry Smirnov, who had carried this check and initiated a <a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/www\/6998.html\/?lang=en\">series of court cases<\/a> against ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d, including the case on charges of violating Article 19.34, Sections 1 and 2 of the Code on administrative violations, was present in court.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">After debates between the parties, which were both short and hectic (and the representatives of NGO were not allowed to even present the arguments they had prepared), the court made a break for further consultations, while at the same time ruling that <strong>the decision of Leninsky district court of December 12, 2013 should remain intact and the appeal of ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d against this decision was turned down<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Saint Petersburg city court\u2019s refusal to accept the legality of appeal made by ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d was disapproved by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omct.org\/human-rights-defenders\/urgent-interventions\/russia\/2014\/04\/d22623\/\">Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/news\/russian-court-forces-closure-prominent-human-rights-ngo-2014-04-08\">Amnesty International<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Statement-on-the-CC-Judgment-and-ADC-Memorial-case.pdf\">International Partnership for Human Rights<\/a> and other organizations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d published official position of its legal representatives (<a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/adts-kk-obz-app.pdf\">in Russian<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Statement by lawyer Olga Tseytlina (<a href=\"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/rech-v-sude.docx\">in Russian<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 8, 2014 Constitutional court of the Russian Federation announced its decision regarding the appeal made by human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin concerning violation of constitutional rights on NGOs, which were charged with \u201cperforming functions of foreign agents\u201d. Constitutional&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[281],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[242],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-9162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adc-memorial","archive-ngos-protection"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20-125x125.jpg",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20-500x375.jpg",500,375,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",220,165,false],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",170,128,false],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",48,36,false],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",300,225,false],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",250,188,false],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",550,413,false],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",240,180,false],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",400,300,false],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",200,150,false],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",380,285,false],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014-04-08-12.50.20.jpg",640,480,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"<p>On April 8, 2014 Constitutional court of the Russian Federation announced its decision regarding the appeal made by human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin concerning violation of constitutional rights on NGOs, which were charged with \u201cperforming functions of foreign agents\u201d. Constitutional court found no violations of Constitution in the requirement for NGOs, which receive money from foreign nationals or stateless persons and are involved in political activities, to register in a special list of NGOs and a requirement for these NGOs to bear the title of \u201cforeign agents\u201d.\u00a0 Constitutional court has stated that such requirements help to make the work of&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"<a href=\"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/category\/news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">News<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=9162"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=9162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}