We don’t need someone else’s Transparency – Newspaper Kommersant No. 39 (7484) of 03/07/2023

The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation recognized the activities of the international organization Transparency International as undesirable in Russia. The supervisory authority believes that the organization headquartered in Berlin, “formally” fighting corruption, interferes in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation. The main international project of the NPO is the Corruption Perceptions Index in 180 countries. In Russia, over the 25 years of the existence of a Russian NPO, top officials, including the head of state, have contacted its experts more than once. During the reform of the police in Transparency, they actively advocated the wearing of badges by law enforcement officers and the right of detainees to make a phone call, which was eventually written into legislation. In the Russian office of the NPO, they said that the head structure of the organization was recognized as undesirable: employees in Moscow are legally independent from it and “will study what all this can mean from a legal point of view.”

Solution The Prosecutor General’s Office on the recognition of Transparency International as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation was taken based on the results of a study of “materials received” from unnamed sources. The department’s communique emphasizes that the headquarters of the NPO is in Berlin, the organization is run by “citizens of foreign countries”, and its activities “clearly go beyond the declared goals and objectives.”

“Formally acting as an organization fighting corruption around the world, it interferes in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation,” the Prosecutor General’s Office explains.

The department sent data on the inclusion of NPOs in the register of undesirable organizations to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Now there are 75 organizations on the list maintained by the department. It was opened in July 2015 by The National Endowment for Democracy. And one of the last, already at the beginning of 2023, was the Limited liability company (SIA) Medusa Project (“Project Medusa” (recognized as a foreign agent)), which is based in Latvia, and the Andrey Sakharov Foundation from the USA. From September 2015, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, the activities of foreign organizations will be recognized as undesirable after publication in Rossiyskaya Gazeta. It should be noted that from the moment the supervisory authority recognizes it as undesirable until it is entered into the register of the Ministry of Justice, it takes an average of two weeks. When included in the list, the accounts of organizations are frozen, and subsidiaries are closed. Undesirable organizations are prohibited from holding public events (from seminars to rallies), storing and distributing their materials, including through the media.

The foreign leadership of Transparency International has not prevented senior Russian officials from meeting with NGO experts, including ex-President Dmitry Medvedev. So, in 2010, Transparency International employees turned to the Ministry of Justice with a request about whether an anti-corruption examination of the new law “On Police”, which was being discussed at that time, was carried out. In February 2011, the experts asked this question at a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, who then expressed the hope that such an examination was carried out. A notable public campaign of the organization was the demand to amend the law “On Police” on the obligatory wearing of badges by law enforcement officers and the right of detainees to make a phone call. These provisions were eventually written into legislation. And in 2021, the organization prepared a ranking of the influence of senators.

On the website of the Russian branch of the NPO, one of the tasks of the organization is stated to be “the formation of an anti-corruption worldview and the legal consciousness of citizens.” Some of Transparency International’s anti-corruption investigations have resulted in subsequent litigation. So, in 2019, the rector of St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko judged Transparency International – R has 1 million rubles. compensation: the court declared untrue information from the publication “Billionaire from the Mountain”, which tells about real estate transactions on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg.

The founder of Transparency International – R, Elena Panfilova, commenting on the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office, told Kommersant that the German legal entity of the organization was recognized as undesirable. “We don’t have branches. Organizations in countries are completely independent,” she stressed. According to Ms. Panfilova, this turn of events “was a complete surprise, its reasons are unknown to us.” “Now we find out what all this can mean for us from a legal point of view,” she added.

Alexander Voronov