The deputy demands that Putin’s speeches be checked for compliance with Art. 282

On March 23, 2012 it became known that the deputy State Dumas from "Fair Russia" Ilya Ponomarev sent to Prosecutor General's Office a request to check the election speeches candidate for the presidency of Russia V. Putin for their compliance with the Russian legislation. Ponomarev suspects Putin of inciting social enmity, subject to Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

As an example of hate speech Ponomarev cited excerpts from the transcript Putin's conversations with voters on December 15, 2011 with widely fame for statements about banderlogs, contraceptives and paid participation people in opposition rallies.

From our point of view, these and other similar statements presidential candidates are too vague to be the subject of judicial review. No social groups are indicated in his words clearly. In addition, the group "participants of the movement" For honest elections," which Ponomarev seeks to defend, can hardly be attributed among the vulnerable groups that should be protected under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and in general, it is difficult to consider this multitude of people any particular "social group". Probably, here one could talk about slander (Article 5.60 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) or insult (Article 5.61 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation), however, due to the vagueness of Putin’s statements, to prove his guilt in this case would be at least difficult.

The arguments of Ilya Ponomarev seem unconvincing to us. His initiative can only be seen as a way to draw attention to imperfection of the Russian anti-extremist legislation and, in particular, Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (although we do not know how Ponomarev himself would have reacted to such interpretation of his appeal to the prosecutor's office). Yes, we have repeatedly stated that the vagueness of the concept of "social group" in this article causes practice of its misuse, so we are in favor of eliminating this concepts from the article. But we think it's better to avoid such ambiguous methods of criticism of the current legislation.

Sources

• Pavel Korsunov. "This demarche is not anti-Putin, but directed against the idiocy of the legislation" // Kommersant FM. 2012. March 23.
• Deputy Ponomarev found article 282 in Putin's speeches (DOCUMENTS) // New region. 2012. March 23.