RFCSE explained the methodology for conducting examinations in cases of fakes and discrediting the Armed Forces

Experts and law enforcement agencies were explained how to analyze statements for false information and discredit the army.

The Russian Federal Center for Forensic Examination (RFTSSE) under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has prepared methodological letters on the specifics of conducting linguistic and psycho-linguistic examinations. They concern materials related to the dissemination of deliberately false and unreliable information "under the guise of reliable reports", as well as publicly discrediting the use of the Russian armed forces and government agencies abroad. The methodological letters were approved by the RFTSSE Academic Council on June 17.

The first letter concerns cases of deliberately false and unreliable information, including the use of armed forces (Articles 207.1, 207.2, 207.3 of the Criminal Code, parts 9, 10, 10.1, 10.2, Article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). According to the methodical letter, in this case, linguistic expertise is sufficient. It is within the competence of the linguist in such cases to ask whether the information is actually presented in the form of "statements of facts and events". Such statements may or may not be true and, accordingly, fall or not fall under the relevant provisions of the Code of Administrative Offenses or the Criminal Code. However, the establishment of reliability is not within the competence of an expert linguist, noted in the methodological letter.

The authors of the letter also emphasize that if it is not a statement, but an expression of an opinion, then by definition it cannot be false or reliable. In this case, law enforcement agencies will not be able to punish the author under the above articles at all.

In the second letter, information materials examined for discrediting the use of the Armed Forces or government agencies abroad are proposed to be compared with the diagnostic complexes of values ​​called "extremist" in the methodology (apparently, by analogy with the methodology of expertise in extremist cases). Based on the provisions of Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses and 280.3 of the Criminal Code, the authors of the methodical letter offer three diagnostic complexes, each of which considers linguistic and psychological features, grouped according to the "subject" of the statement, the "attitude" of the author and his "goal".

The first complex concerns Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses and 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the wording "calls to prevent the use", which, from the point of view of linguistics, is interpreted as "an inducement (including in the form of a call) to oppose the functioning" of the armed forces or to "oppose the exercise" by state bodies of their powers. The author of the statement should consider it "necessary, expedient" to "preclude" the use of VS, "express his negative emotional and semantic attitude" to the situation, give a positive assessment of the actions to stop the use of VS or justify its correctness. The purpose of the author of the statement should be to induce actions to prevent the use of VS, and from a psychological point of view, the statement should form in the addressee "an idea of ​​the impossibility (danger, disadvantage, etc.) of inaction."

The second and third diagnostic complexes are devoted to the actual "discrediting" of the use of the Armed Forces and government agencies, which the authors of the methodical letter decipher as "persuasion in the negative nature of the goals" of their use. This statement should be about whether or not to use the Armed Forces or government agencies. At the same time, the goals of using the Armed Forces must necessarily be characterized as not corresponding to the goals of protecting the interests of the Russian Federation, its citizens, maintaining peace and security, “which can be expressed in the nominations “military aggression”, “war of conquest”, “fascist war”, etc. From a psychological point of view, the actions of the Armed Forces should be assessed as harmful, dangerous, and the view of the problem offered to the addressee should be presented as the only true and fair one. The purpose of the statement should be "persuasion". Similarly, it is proposed to analyze statements about the activities of government agencies abroad.

The authors of the methodical letter note that the slogan "No to war" has no linguistic signs of discrediting the use of the armed forces, since it contains a negative assessment of the very fact of using the armed forces, and not the purposes of their use.

In general, there is a significant difference between the two methodical letters. In the first, dedicated to "fakes", the expert is given a limited task that is quite consistent with his profile, and the main work of the investigation, that is, proving the deliberate falsity (unreliability) of certain statements, is left to law enforcement agencies. In the second, devoted to "discrediting", the experts, in essence, shifted all the work on the analysis of controversial statements. On the one hand, we believe that in a significant number of speech cases this should be avoided. The court can and should independently assess the content and context of statements that are understandable to a wide audience, and resort to the help of experts only in non-trivial situations. On the other hand, the practice of applying Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses shows that in a significant number of cases, the courts either neglect the analysis of statements altogether, or are uncritical about the interpretations offered by the police. In other cases, they rely on the opinion of a specialist involved in the case (for example, a linguist), but the quality of their conclusions seems to be extremely low. In this situation, the creation of a methodology for conducting examinations in cases of discrediting the use of the Armed Forces may slightly improve the quality of justice.

However, from our point of view, the very introduction into the legislation of a ban on discrediting the actions of the Russian armed forces and government agencies abroad was an unreasonable restriction on the right to freedom of expression, designed to suppress criticism of the political course of the authorities. Therefore, we consider prosecution under the relevant articles for statements that do not contain direct calls for violence to be unlawful.

Sources

• Inc. inf.