The draft federal law On Amending Articles 213 and 282 of the Criminal Code and Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offences was submitted by State Duma Deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov.
The Government has reviewed the draft law and made the following conclusions.
The draft law seeks to invalidate Part 1(b) of Article 213 of the Criminal Code on punishment for acts of hooliganism motivated by political, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious hatred or hostility towards a certain social group.
The draft law also proposes amending Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates responsibility for actions, including acts of hooliganism, which are meant to debase human dignity or call into question the equality of people or a group of people on the grounds of gender, race, nationality, language, origin, faith, or belonging to a particular social group.
The terms used in the current wording of Part 1 of Article 282 – "actions that debase human dignity" and "call into question the equality of people or a group of people" – are insufficiently clear and therefore do not comply with the approach of the Constitutional Court set out in Resolution No. 8-II of May 27, 2008, according to which any crime, as well as attendant measures of criminal responsibility, must be clearly formulated in legislation.
Article 2(2) of the draft law proposes amending Part 2 of Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offences Code, which stipulates administrative punishment for acts of sacrilege, notably actions that cause offence to religious beliefs or desecrate religious objects, in particular places of religious worship, religious items, as well as symbols and emblems that reflect a religious worldview.
The term "sacrilege" does not exist in current law, whereas the definition proposed in the draft law implies a judgement and therefore lacks legal certainty.
The draft law also proposes to increase the maximum administrative penalty for the administrative offences listed in Part 2 of Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offences, as worded in the draft law, up to 20,000 roubles.
However, this proposal contradicts the provisions of Part 1 of Article 3.5 of the Code of Administrative Offences, according to which fines imposed on Russian nationals under administrative law cannot exceed 5,000 roubles.
The explanatory note to the draft law does not contain sufficient legal arguments or statistical data to substantiate the need for these amendments.
The proposed amendments contradict the current approach to regulating this sphere and require additional substantiation.