The Ministry of Justice is not going to change the article of the Criminal Code, according to which Dadina was convicted

The Ministry of Justice does not prepare amendments to an article on systematic violations at rallies after the decision of the Constitutional Court on the complaint of activist Ildar Dadin, TASS reports with reference to the Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov.

“As far as I remember, the decision of the Constitutional Court does not imply mandatory preparation of amendments to the bill. We do not have specific plans for the preparation of bills now,” the minister said at the International Legal Forum in St. Petersburg.

Konovalov said that optimization of legislation is carried out by the department always in planned regime. “If such proposals appear in the context of our work, then we will definitely present them,” he concluded.

Ildar Dadin became the first and so far the only convict under Article 212.1 ("repeated violation of the established procedure for organizing or holding a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession or picket") after its appearance in the new version of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the summer of 2014. In December 2015, the Basmanny Court of Moscow sentenced the activist to three years in prison, finding guilty of four episodes of participation in inconsistent protests.

In March 2016, the Moscow City Court softened Dadin for up to two years and six months. On February 10, 2017, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation decided that the Dadina case should be revised, and an article by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, according to which he was convicted, is subject to change. However, at the same time, the Constitutional Court admitted that Dadin’s punishment in the form of criminal liability does not contradict the Basic Law of the Russian Federation.

On February 22, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation canceled Dadin and recognized his right to rehabilitation. A week later, representatives of the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice announced their readiness to cancel the article on which the activist was convicted. And the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko called on experts to carefully study Article 212.1 and, if necessary, clarify its provisions. The Chairman of the SF noted that, perhaps, "the blurry some concepts of this article allow you to abuse its content and take excess measures, as happened with Dadin."

But on April 28, the Russian government opposed the abolition of the article and gave a negative review of the corresponding bill submitted to the State Duma by the LDPR faction.