The court accepted the post – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

Actress Kristina Asmus avoided an administrative fine under the article on discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the case against her was dismissed on September 14. The Tverskoy Court of Moscow did not find any corpus delicti in the February 24 publication by Kristina Asmus, dedicated to the start of military operations of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. The text was deleted on September 6, but this circumstance was not at all the reason for the termination of the case, Christina Asmus’ lawyer Vladimir Lyakhovsky told Kommersant. From the statistics of human rights activists provided to Kommersant by the OVD-Info project (included in the register of foreign agents), it follows that the termination of cases under this article is a rarity.

The post by Kristina Asmus, in which law enforcement authorities saw a condemnation of hostilities, was published on the day the Russian military special operation began on the territory of Ukraine on Instagram (owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation and banned). Six months later, on August 25, it became known that an administrative case had been opened to discredit the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). Kristina Asmus was threatened with a fine of 30 thousand to 50 thousand rubles. On September 6, the publication of the actress was removed from the network.

Lawyer Vladimir Lyakhovsky explained the February statement of the defendant by “a state of strong emotional excitement”, and the fact that the text remained online until September, by the “forgetfulness” of the actress.

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow, where the case was considered, closed the process from the media, and on September 14 stopped the proceedings “due to the lack of an administrative offense.”

The court decision is not related to the removal of the post from Instagram, Vladimir Lyakhovsky explained to Kommersant on Wednesday. “The court did not see the structure of an administrative offense in the publication itself,” he said. “In addition, during the proceedings I put forward six arguments for dismissing the case, among which there were a large number of procedural violations by the person who conducted the investigation. The rudest of them is the lack of notification (Kristina Asmus about the initiation of the case.— “b”) by the address”. In addition, the lawyer recalled, the article on “discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” was introduced into the Code of Administrative Offenses in March – after the actress posted an anti-war publication. This was also one of the main defense arguments, explained Mr. Lyakhovsky.

Recall, Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the RF Armed Forces in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens) was introduced into the Code of Administrative Offenses on March 5, 2022. Then there were Art. 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on “dissemination of false information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”. To date, the Agora human rights group has recorded 100 criminal cases of “false information” across the country, and the editors of the Mediazona publication (included in the register of foreign media agents) have recorded 3,807 administrative cases of “discrediting”. In July, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation reported on the preparation of 3,300 administrative protocols for “discrediting”.

As Kommersant reported, lawyers also record the qualification of the same actions or statements under different articles: there are cases when activists were brought to administrative responsibility for identical actions in some cities, and criminally in others. Note that actress Tatyana Rudina under an administrative article on discrediting the court fined for 50 thousand rubles. on the same day that her colleague Christina Asmus deleted her post. For the same amount before was fined for statements at a concert in Ufa, the leader of the group DDT Yuri Shevchuk.

From the statistics of the human rights project “OVD-Info” (included in the register of foreign agents, the project’s lawyers defend the accused in cases related to freedom of assembly and expression) it follows that the percentage of termination of administrative proceedings under Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is extremely small.

In all defamation cases handled by OVD-Info lawyers, in Russia, 3.9% of proceedings were terminated in the courts of first instance (the grounds for termination are different) and 0.8% on appeal.

As for Moscow, OVD-Info has so far zero cases dismissed in the first instance and 0.9% on appeal.

“For Art. 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, the period for bringing to responsibility is three months from the moment of discovery – that is, from the moment the first document in the case was drawn up: an act of inspecting the site, a report, a protocol, – explains the lawyer of OVD-Info, Eva Levenberg. – In other words, if a citizen came out with a poster to the rally, or if the security forces managed to fix the publication before the deletion, then they can be prosecuted for this act within three months.

It doesn’t matter if the post was deleted on social networks or not, just as the date of its publication does not matter – before March 5 or later, the expert emphasizes: “Most often, the courts consider the offense to be ongoing – the responsibility comes for the very fact of the presence of the publication.” At the same time, lawyers are aware of a number of cases when the courts nevertheless considered the approach of a “continuing” offense unacceptable. For example, the Naryan-Mar City Court and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug dismissed a number of defamation cases with the wording about “failure to establish administrative responsibility” for activists who opposed the special operation before the March changes to the Code of Administrative Offenses.

Maria Starikova