The Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the practice of approving actions

Commissioner for Human Rights Ella Pamfilova in her 2014 report criticized the situation with the approval of public events. The document was published on May 7 in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

“The practice of approving applications for holding public events sometimes grows into full-scale procedures for demanding and issuing “permits”, which ultimately leads to the impossibility of holding events,” the report says.

According to the commissioner, the share of refusals in approval reaches 23 percent - such an indicator was recorded in Samara. The minimum failure rate, 8.5 percent, was found in Yekaterinburg.

At the same time, in case of refusal, the authorities do not always offer the organizers of the action alternative options for holding the event. Meanwhile, the report emphasizes, the Constitutional Court requires that the approval procedure be a joint search for a mutually acceptable solution, and not an unreasonable and unilateral decision of the authorities.

Every case of unlawful restriction by officials of the constitutional rights of citizens to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech should be subject to verification under Article 5.38 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (obstructing the organization or holding of a public event), Pamfilova argues, but now this article is practically not applied.