Integrated NGO register to be launched in Russia in 2015

Moscow, 9.12.2014

An integrated register will contain information about the foundation, deadlines and results of regulatory inspections carried out in all legal entities and individual businesses. It will also contain the details of measures taken for the prevention and elimination of previously identified violations.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, yesterday announced the launch of a single integrated register for inspecting organisations during his annual address before the Federal Assembly. “A special register will be launched next year with information about which organ and with what aim an inspection has been initiated, and what were the results. This will allow the unmotivated and, even worse, the “ordered” visits by inspectors to be cut,” said the president.

A corresponding draft bill will be reviewed at a first reading on Wednesday, reported Izvestiya. The rules for the formation and running of the register will be confirmed by the Russian government, and it will be operated by the State Office of the Public Prosecutor.

Among other things, parliamentary deputies are reviewing the draft bill to soften the sanctions implemented in relation to the “foreign agent” law. The plan is to lower the lowest threshold of fines for violations to the “foreign agent” law. Civil servants will be subject to fines of between 50,000 and 300,000 roubles, while legal entities could pay between 100,000 and 500,000 roubles.

Such liberalisation in legislation is necessary because earlier legislation goes “a little too far”, explained Vadim Solovyev in the Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Structures newsletter.

“Now we are trying to work out the optimal alternative. Attitudes towards NGOs should be objective, as, on the one hand, they are social organisations made up of citizens, and have the aim of solving an issue. For example, the Golos [Voice] Association does a great deal of positive work in terms of election monitoring. On the other hand, foreign money falls into the hands of certain NGOs, and because of this they are trying to influence our politics. Foreign governments should not have the opportunity to interfere in our political lives,” Solovyev told the publication.

AUTHOR:  Georgi Ivanushkin