Russian CC Court invalidates mechanism of prosecutors' checks of NGOs

The existing mechanism for unscheduled checks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by the Prosecutor's Office is contrary to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and must be changed. This is the verdict of the Russian Constitutional Court (CC) passed on the complaint of human rights organizations, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" among them.

The complaint stated, in particular, that the authorities of the prosecutor's office to define on its sole discretion the grounds, the periodicity and duration of checks impede the work of NGOs.

The Russian CC has ruled that the provision of the Law "On Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation" that lacks the time frame for fulfilment on inspector's demands is contrary to the Constitution, a source from the CC told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The CC has obliged to amend the law and eliminate all the contradictions. Thus, from now NGOs shall be warned in advance about upcoming checks; any check shall be motivated. The prosecutor's office shall not demand from an NGO the publicly available information and the data already available at other government agencies, as well as the documents that a legal entity should not possess. Besides, under the CC's verdict, a check of the prosecutor's office shall not be conducted repeatedly on the same grounds.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.