Thirteen fines and three warnings – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) dated February 18, 2023

The Basmanny Court of Moscow has finally begun to consider the claim of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Justice for the liquidation of the Jewish agency Sokhnut. Since August last year, the meetings were postponed at the request of the defendant’s representatives – they needed time to eliminate the violations, which became the basis for the liquidation claim. This time, the court did not agree to wait and heard the positions of the parties. Ministry of Justice employees explained that Sokhnut posted the personal data of Russians on foreign websites and in three years was brought to administrative responsibility 16 times for violations of the laws “On Personal Data” and “On NGOs”. For this, agency employees, according to the department, were fined 735 thousand rubles. Lawyers retorted: the fined persons do not work in the “Sohnut”.

The fifth attempt to start proceedings on the liquidation of “Sohnut” started with a request from the defense to postpone the process until April 1. Lawyer Andrey Grishaev explained to the court and opponents: “Sohnut”, which is accused of a number of violations of the legislation of the Russian Federation, including an incorrectly drawn up charter, has been trying to eliminate this violation and register a new version of the document with the Ministry of Justice for six months now. The next (“already sixth”) corrected edition was sent to the Ministry of Justice on February 15, the defender explained: “We are charged with two shortcomings, they were corrected in the first edition of the charter (in the summer of 2022.— “b”), but now we are denied registration, referring to the provisions of either 2015 or 2009, although the Ministry of Justice no longer has the comments that formed the basis of the liquidation claim.” In addition, Andrey Grishaev noted, the department “will take months” to review the new wording, which is why the defense asks to reschedule the meeting again.

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice Margarita Mezentseva and Ivan Tatarnikov spoke out against it. Judge Olga Lipkina agreed that it was no longer possible to postpone, and acquainted the audience with a summary of the suit of the Ministry of Justice. In May-June last year, the Moscow department of the department conducted an audit of the Sokhnut agency for the period from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2022 and established the facts of “collection, registration and storage of personal data” of citizens of the Russian Federation, as well as the placement of this data on websites, registered abroad. The audit showed that for violations of the laws “On Personal Data” and “On NPOs” branches of “Sokhnut” in different regions were brought to administrative responsibility 16 times in three years. The Ministry of Justice considered these violations “repeated, systematic and sufficient to liquidate and exclude the organization from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.”

The Jewish Agency “Sokhnut” was founded in 1929 as part of the World Zionist Organization. The main task was to facilitate the immigration of Jews from different countries to Palestine, and after the creation of the Jewish state – to Israel, as well as communication with diasporas. On the territory of the USSR “Sokhnut” began to work in 1989 (two years before the opening of the Israeli embassy in Moscow). The agency in the Russian Federation oversees children’s camps and Sunday schools, as well as educational programs, including those for the repatriation of young people.

“2021, Omsk, passports and visas scanned without the consent of citizens of the Russian Federation, personal data posted on websites registered in Germany and Israel,” Margarita Mezentseva specified the claims with examples, after which she mentioned the episodes in Novosibirsk, Saratov and the Sverdlovsk region. The representative of the Ministry of Justice emphasized that “all the work of the organization related to the processing of personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation is based on one principle – cross-border transfer, for which the organization has no legal grounds.”

During four regional inspections (carried out earlier and which became the basis for fines to branches), the storage of personal data of Russians in “uncontrolled” premises, where “persons who do not have the right to access” could penetrate, was discovered. In total, on 16 episodes, employees of the Sokhnut branches received three warnings and 13 fines for a total of 735,500 rubles, Ms. Mezentseva said. She confirmed that the Ministry of Justice had not yet received a copy of the new charter of “Sohnut”, but the department also had a number of other claims, including the failure to indicate in the reporting documents the amounts of money pledged for employees’ vacations. The Ministry of Justice asks to appoint a measure of punishment in the form of liquidation of the agency “as the only possible one” in connection with all of the above, Margarita Mezentseva concluded.

Lawyer Andrei Grishaev demanded that each of the 16 alleged violations be analyzed separately, referring to a direct order from the Supreme Court to act in such a way when a number of administrative violations become a reason to liquidate an NGO. He also illustrated his demand with examples: “2019, Miroshnichenko (according to the Ministry of Justice, an employee of a branch in the Far East.— “b”) is held liable with a warning. But she hasn’t been working at Sokhnut since 2018. Varvenko (according to the Ministry of Justice, an employee of the branch in the Jewish Autonomous Region.— “b”) was brought in in 2019, but she has had nothing to do with Sokhnut since 2013. She doesn’t work for the organization! Yes, we can now say that 16 violations are a lot, let’s eliminate them, but if we analyze each one, mistakes will become clear.” The plaintiff, the defendant’s representative insisted, did not explain how these episodes in the aggregate formed a “systematic pattern”, a prerequisite for which are “repeated” violations for which the person had already been fined.

With reference to the Constitution, the lawyer recalled that any restriction of the rights of citizens and their associations should pursue a socially significant goal – for example, the protection of the foundations of the constitutional order or the security of the state. The court must consider the possibility of resolving the situation “without liquidation”. The very fact of liquidation is an “exceptional” measure, the lawyer emphasized, “such an exceptional measure should be proportionate to the violations committed and the consequences they caused.” There are no answers to the questions, what are the consequences and what is the socially significant goal of closing the agency, in the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice, he concluded and asked to postpone the meeting, giving the Ministry of Justice time to clarify the claims.

Olga Lipkina did not postpone the meeting; a break was announced in the case until February 20.

Maria Starikova