Translated material
The new law on rallies in the Kirov region did not solve old problems
On March 25, the deputies of the legislative assembly of the Kirov region adopted a new regional law on public events. The text of the law appeared on the website of the Legislative Assembly on April 2 and will enter into force ten days after publication.
In the new law, special attention is paid to the regulation of holding actions in specially designated places - hyde parks. The number and location of such special places will be determined by the government of the Kirov region at the suggestion of municipal administrations.
The legislators also decided to reduce the Hyde Park occupancy rate to one person per square meter. The previous law provided for twice as many participants - half a square meter was allocated per person. The new law also imposes restrictions on the placement of campaigning and the use of sound reinforcement during actions in Hyde Parks.
Not resolved in the new law was the issue of prohibited territories for holding actions. The entire extensive list of such territories from the previous law was transferred to the new one with an addition that shares in these places are not completely prohibited, but can be limited at the time of approval by the body where the notification is submitted. The problems of such regulation and inconsistency with the positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation were previously pointed out to the Kirov legislators by the regional prosecutor's office in their critical review of the draft law.
As a positive change, it can be noted that the new law transfers more powers to coordinate shares to the municipal authorities. Now, only those public events that are planned to be held simultaneously on the territory of “two or more municipal districts and (or) municipal districts and (or) urban districts” need to be coordinated with the regional authorities.
OVD-Info lawyer Denis Shedov told about changes in the legislation
- In September 2020, the draft new law on rallies in the Kirov region was adopted in the first reading and contained a large number of restrictive provisions. In particular, it was proposed to establish the priority of holding all public events in Hyde Parks.
- In March 2021, it became known that a second reading on the bill was being prepared, where deputies were asked to discuss a package of amendments to the original bill. All amendments were prepared by one of the authors of the bill and assumed a significant easing of regulation compared to the original version. In many respects, the amendments repeated the theses from the critical review of the prosecutor's office of the Kirov region on the bill.