The FSB has proposed instructions for inspecting dwellings and cars without judicial permission

The FSB has developed an instruction on the conduct of operational-search activities (ORM) by its employees. The project is published on the portal of projects of normative legal acts. According to the current legislation, not only an FSB officer, but also an employee of another law enforcement agency has the right to hold such an event before judicial permission.

Cases that “bring about no delay and may lead to the commission of a grave or especially grave crime, as well as in the presence of data on events and actions (inaction) that pose a threat to the state, military, economic, informational or environmental security of the Russian Federation” are stipulated in Art. 8 of the law “On operational-search activity”. In this case, the investigator undertakes to notify the court within 24 hours after the ORM.

Despite the existing law on the investigative activity, according to which all security forces worked, the norms were often violated – at first, law enforcement officers carried out an operational event, then they received confirmation of legality in court, says lawyer Alexander Burchuk. The practice, according to him, has developed in such a way that, for example, searches are carried out urgently. “According to the law, it will take two to three weeks to get a court decision, which, in principle, is impossible to wait that long (for operational measures. – Vedomosti),” the lawyer explained. The instruction should streamline these processes from the point of view of legality.

In addition to the procedure for examining premises, buildings and vehicles, the document includes a list of categories of heads of FSB bodies capable of making decisions on ORM. The list, in addition to the director of the FSB and his deputies, includes the heads of all divisions of the service and their deputies responsible for the operational-search activity. In addition, the instruction allows the FSB to seize suspicious documents and items during an inspection. It is also stipulated that, in order to ensure the physical protection of the employees conducting the survey, it is allowed to involve employees of the special forces of the security agencies.

“The instruction does not contain any novelties – it’s just the procedure for the actions of the FSB of Russia when initiating, conducting and documenting a survey of the premises,” Andrey Klishas, ​​head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, wrote on his Telegram channel. In addition, this provision of the law was also considered by the Constitutional Court in 2017, Klishas noted. The senator also recalled that a similar instruction has been in force for the Ministry of Internal Affairs since 2014.

By order of the FSB, it establishes criteria for the urgency of conducting searches for its investigators, and at the same time it is prescribed that the rights of citizens should not be violated in any case, adviser to the Federal Chamber of Lawyers Boris Zolotukhin told Vedomosti. Lawyer Maksim Pashkov pointed out that “inspection of a dwelling” is a type of ORM carried out before a criminal case is initiated, which now often replaces a search.

“Before that, a court decision was required to conduct an inspection – a formality, but still now this will not be required,” the lawyer emphasized. According to Pashkov, this instruction is aimed at simplifying criminal proceedings: “With the inflexibility of the system, everything goes to the fact that the inviolability of the home becomes a purely formal right.”