The Ministry of Justice proposes to eliminate "foreign agents" for failure to provide reports

Non -profit organizations recognized by "foreign agents" can be liquidated by the court "for repeated failure to fulfill the obligation" to provide the Ministry of Justice of the reporting. This is provided by the Law on Agents developed by the department, TASS reports .

The Ministry of Justice submitted the bill to the Human Rights Council. On Tuesday, the Presidium of the HRC considered this document, but the results of the discussion are not reported.

The explanatory note to the bill states that the “foreign agents” establishes provisions on the need to submit to the Ministry of Justice and its bodies “programs and other documents that are the basis for measures financed and (or) conducted with the participation of foreign sources and a substantial report on their use”. In addition, the structural units of foreign non -governmental organizations will be required to publish reports in the manner similar to Russian NPOs.

In addition, the document provides for the ban for officials to "participate in the activities or to be part of the management bodies of non -profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent; to travel beyond the borders of the Russian Federation for extra -consuming purposes at the expense of foreign states, international citizens and stateless persons, as well as Russian legal entities receiving funds of other property from these sources."

On Tuesday, State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov sent a request to the government in connection with some provisions of the bill, in particular, onthe ban on agents to put forward candidates to members of public supervisory commissions (PMCs) that control the observance of human rights in places of forced content.

In the request, Gudkov recalled the decision of the Constitutional Court of April 2014 . The KS then recognized the law on "agents" not contrary to the Constitution on the grounds that the document does not establish restrictions for NGOs included in the register. The court decision also says that the law "does not imply state intervention in determining the preferred content and priorities of such activities."

Gudkov asks the head of government Dmitry Medvedev to give an order to the commission on the bill activities "to clarify the official position on the accounting of the relevant resolution of the Constitutional Court when deciding on the approval of the bill on the regulation of the PMC during its meeting on October 19, 2015."

“The question arises, what should be believed - previously received by“ foreign agents ”, are not infringed on the rights, or the current bill, and even more so, before, such NPOs have already been forbidden to observe the elections, now they want to prohibit the nominations for the PMC,” Gudkov said.

The preparation of the bill became known in September . The text of the document was published . Human rights activists sharply criticized the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, as a substantially limiting the rights of NPOs. In particular, they referred to the same decision of the Constitutional Court.

Other restrictions are also imposed on the activities of NPOs recognized as "foreign agents". In August, the Ministry of Communications prepared a bill that changes the rules for registering the media. It is proposed, in particular, to ban the institutions of NPOs - "foreign agents" . According to the deputy head of the Ministry of Communications of Alexei Volina, the new bill only cites the law on the media in line with other applicable norms. In particular, foreigners are prohibited from having more than 20 percent in the Russian media , and the “agent”, according to the official, is equated with a foreigner. At the same time, the situation when the “agent”, like a foreigner, will be able to have a 20 percent share in the publication, Wolin regarded as risky. "We do not advise you to have decent people as part of the founders of" agents "," he said.