The government supported the bill to clarify the deadlines for appealing fines

The Cabinet of Ministers supported amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, clarifying the deadlines for citizens to appeal administrative fines. According to current rules, this can be done within ten days. An amendment is being made to the Code of Administrative Offenses, according to which an appeal will be possible within ten days. This seemingly technical amendment will give car owners an extra day to challenge what they consider to be unfair sanctions.

The bill, supported by the government (Kommersant has read the review), was prepared by the head of the Duma Committee on Social Policy Yaroslav Nilov (LDRP). He suggested amending Part 1 of Art. 30.3 of the Administrative Code, which regulates the deadline for filing a complaint against decisions on administrative offenses. According to current regulations, a citizen must submit a corresponding application within ten days from the date of delivery (or receipt) of a copy of the resolution. Mr. Nilov proposes changing the word “day” to “days”.

A purely technical amendment at first glance will make life easier for citizens, especially drivers, who account for the largest number of fines. Thus, in 2023, the traffic police initiated 240 million administrative cases, of which 345 thousand were terminated (no grounds for termination are given in the statistics). If the end of the ten-day period provided for by law falls on Sunday, it follows from the explanatory note, citizens will actually have an additional day to file a complaint – Monday. According to current rules, this period ends at 23:59 Sunday. It should be noted that most citizens appeal fines electronically (through the government services portal or the Russian Post service for sending electronic registered letters) at any convenient day and time. However, not all Russians have access to the Internet, the deputy emphasizes; some want (or this is their only technical possibility) to file a complaint in paper form via mail or directly to the traffic police department. It is for them that the adjustment is provided.

The Russian government supported the bill. They noted that the amendments are aimed at “ensuring guarantees of the right of persons brought to administrative responsibility to appeal decisions.” As soon as the review is officially submitted to the State Duma, the bill will be submitted to parliament for consideration, said Yaroslav Nilov.

Problems with transferring the day of appeal to a working day did not exist until the release in 2023 of a review of the judicial practice of the Supreme Court, lawyer Mikhail Nikitin explained to Kommersant (Yaroslav Nilov also refers to this document in the explanatory note). This review says that the appeal period is calculated in days, so if the last day falls on a non-working day, it is not transferred to the next working day. “Why it was decided to abandon this completely sensible approach is a mystery to me,” says Mr. Nikitin. The problem was solved by filing a petition to extend the period for appeal, but the citizen may not be aware of this possibility, adds Andrey Sharkov, managing partner of the law firm STEPS.

Popular Front expert Katerina Solovyova believes that the approach when the Code of Administrative Offenses changes every time after the release of the relevant practice of the Armed Forces is incorrect. The expert believes that deputies should first submit a request to the Constitutional Court so that the Constitutional Court points out the contradiction, and only then, if necessary, edit the code. If parliamentarians want to help drivers, Ms. Solovyova believes, it is better to stipulate that the appeal period is calculated not just in days, but in working days, as is done in the legislation on compulsory motor liability insurance when considering claims.

Ivan Buranov