Deputy may be fined for the first time for the lack of marking in the legislative initiative

In relation to the head of the Communist Party faction in the State Council (parliament) of the Komi Republic, Viktor Vorobyov (included in the register of foreign agents), an administrative protocol was drawn up for the absence of a “foreign agent” marking in the draft resolution submitted for consideration by colleagues. Foreign agents have already been fined for the absence of a “dice” in deputy requests (see “Kommersant” dated May 31), but there were no complaints about their legislative initiatives yet. Other parliamentarians-foreign agents, as practice shows, prefer not to skimp on their duty.

The reason for the next check of Viktor Vorobyov was the complaint of the Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Komi Sergey Usachev (“United Russia”). The speaker informed the republican department of the Ministry of Justice that a draft resolution was posted on the official website of the legislative assembly, one of the authors of which is a foreign deputy, and asked to evaluate this document for compliance with the law “On Control over the Activities of Persons Under Foreign Influence”.

We are talking about a draft resolution approving the holding of a referendum on the return of direct elections of heads of municipalities. The plebiscite was launched by an initiative group of 120 people, who in May filed a corresponding application with the electoral committee of the republic. The commission found no violations and sent documents to the State Council to assess the compliance of the issues put to the vote with the law. Two alternative drafts were prepared there: an approving referendum, which was introduced by members of the Communist Party faction Viktor Vorobyov, Ekaterina Dyachkova, Ilya Bogdanov and Nikolai Bratenkov, and also a one rejecting it, which was introduced by Sergei Usachev. On June 21, the Communists’ version was removed from consideration by a majority of votes, and the speaker’s version was supported. On the same day, Mr. Usachev complained about Viktor Vorobyov to the Ministry of Justice.

There, in turn, they came to the conclusion that Mr. Vorobyov violated the requirement of the law, obliging foreign agents to indicate their status when applying to public authorities, and drew up a protocol under Part 4 of Art. 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, that is, for the production of materials without “foreign agency” marking.

This is far from the first claim of this kind against a member of the Komi parliament. As reported by Kommersant, in May, three protocols were drawn up against him at once for the lack of marking in deputy requests, and a little later three more were added to them. In half of the cases, the court has already issued a decision to bring the communist to administrative responsibility in the form of a fine of 30 thousand rubles. (for each protocol). He is now challenging them on appeal.

If at least two decisions come into force, this may become the basis for initiating a criminal case for repeated violation of the procedure for the activities of a foreign agent (part 2 of article 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and subsequent deprivation of the mandate.

Viktor Vorobyov himself told Kommersant that, as in the case of deputy requests, he does not consider it necessary to mark the bills, since, in his opinion, they do not belong to the “materials” distributed by foreign agents – “deputy activity is carried out in the interests of voters, and not in the interests of principals not named by the Ministry of Justice. According to him, the regulation of the State Council states that the bill must contain information about the author, an explanatory note, a financial and economic justification and other data, “but, of course, there is no mention there that the bill should contain a marking that his introduced by a foreign agent.

“After the words “project introduces” and the name of the deputy, the text of the bill should go directly, which in this form becomes law if it is voted for,” explains Mr. Vorobyov.

If we follow the position of the Ministry of Justice, then we get a comical situation when foreign agency markings can migrate from the bill to the adopted and published law.”

We add that other deputies-foreign agents are not so principled in this matter. For example, a former member of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, Yevgeny Stupin (included in the register of foreign agents), places the appropriate marking at the beginning of the cover letter, and does without it in the text of the bill itself. In total, there are now four regional deputies in Russia who are included in the register of foreign agents: in addition to Mr. Vorobyov and Stupina This Daria Besedina (Yabloko faction) and Mikhail Timonov (formally a member of the Just Russia faction, but considers himself a non-factional deputy) from the Moscow City Duma. Also, the deputy of the St. Petersburg municipal council “Palace District” was recognized as a foreign agent Natalya Gryaznevich.

According to lawyer Anastasia Burakova, legislation on foreign agents it is written “as vaguely as possible”, so the Ministry of Justice has the opportunity to interpret the established restrictions “very freely”. “There is a general wording: when applying to government agencies, a foreign agent is obliged to put a label. Deputy activity does not apply to appeals, but there have already been cases of imposing such penalties on organizations-foreign agents that sent some of their proposals to state bodies,” adds Ms. Burakova. In her opinion, the appearance of “foreign agency” marking in the law is unlikely, since it “is adopted by vote and issued on behalf of the legislature, and not the deputy who introduced it.”

Andrew Ashes