The Supreme Court explained to foreign agents the rules of conduct in elections

A foreign agent is not entitled to carry out activities that promote or hinder the nomination of candidates, lists of candidates, as well as the election of registered candidates, the initiative to hold a referendum and the holding of a referendum, the achievement of a certain result in elections and in other forms participate in election campaigns, referendum campaigns, follows from the resolution of the plenum Supreme Court (SC). The highest court notes that in this regard, foreign agents cannot be observers at elections or referendums, referring to paragraph 6 of Art. 11 of the Federal Law of July 14, 2022 “On control over the activities of persons under foreign influence.”

In addition, the clarifications state that candidates’ proxies or authorized representatives, including authorized representatives for financial matters, cannot be foreign agents.

The Supreme Court recalled that the law provides for the obligation of a candidate, an electoral association to indicate in the signature list, among other things, information about his criminal record, as well as that the candidate is a foreign agent or a person affiliated with a foreign agent. “With this in mind, if a candidate is a foreign agent or a candidate affiliated with a foreign agent, information about this must be indicated in the signature sheet, regardless of the fact that the signature sheet does not have independent lines for entering this information,” the resolution emphasizes. Otherwise, it means failure to enter information about the candidate and is the basis for invalidating all signatures in the signature sheet.

In addition, the Supreme Court ordered the candidates to be more careful with the use of Nazi and extremist symbols in the election campaign. It can only be used to form a negative attitude towards the ideology of Nazism and extremism.

In the text of the resolution, the plenum also draws attention to the fact that campaigning is legal only on media websites and advertising platforms that are not blocked on the territory of Russia.

To protect their rights, citizens need to familiarize themselves with the register of foreign agents maintained by the Ministry of Justice, said Angelina Sevostyanova, head of corporate practice at Key Consulting Group. According to her, the decision of the Supreme Court emphasizes the difference between foreign agents and candidates associated with them: for the latter category of persons, this fact is required to be indicated in the signature list, but there are no restrictions on their participation in the election campaign.

Vladimir Kuznetsov, Vice-President of the Association of Lawyers for Registration, Liquidation, Bankruptcy and Legal Representation, in turn, considers the clause on the affiliation of a potential candidate with a person having the status of a foreign agent to be disputable, since the category of affiliation is essentially a vector, i.e. the presence of manifestations of such affiliation. “In other words, if a candidate does not communicate with a person formally affiliated with him, having the status of a foreign agent, or does not know about such affiliation at all, then the appropriate restrictions should not be applied to him, but the courts are unlikely to interpret the corresponding explanation of the plenum in this way” Kuznetsov said.

In addition, the text of the resolution of the plenum is replete with evaluative categories, such as “confusingly similar to Nazi paraphernalia or symbols,” says the lawyer. For courts, the introduction of evaluation categories is extremely harmful, since they can be “stretched” in any direction and to any degree, Kuznetsov notes.

Political technologist Oleg Zakharov told Vedomosti that the plenum did not issue any revolutionary rules, rather, hedged the legislator. “Sometimes the Supreme Court sends rather witty signals to the legislator that it is useful to outline reasonable boundaries by introducing various kinds of prohibitions,” Zakharov argues. For example, the ban on the swastika and other Nazi symbols does not prevent its use where it is needed to condemn Nazism. “Otherwise, with such an approach, the photo from the first Victory Parade could also be recognized as propaganda of Nazism,” he concluded.

The status of a foreign agent in Russian legislation appeared in 2012 along with changes in the law on NGOs. It has been assigned to the media since 2017, and to individuals since 2020. In 2022, the law “On Control over the Activities of Persons Under Foreign Influence” was adopted, which combined all legal acts relating to the activities of foreign agents and established a unified register for all holders of such status.

On April 26, a group of deputies submitted to the State Duma the so-called draft law “on third parties”. It prescribes to take into account, when interacting with foreign agents, the restrictions officially established for them, which are described in Art. 11 of the law “On control over the activities of persons under foreign influence” (among them – being in power, teaching, government funding, etc.).

In case of violation of this requirement, the Ministry of Justice may issue a warning for “assisting” a foreign agent, followed by a fine.