The draft federal law On Introducing Amendments to Article 32 of the federal law On Non-Governmental Organisations and On Repealing Paragraphs 3-7 of Sub-Clause G of Clause 5 of Article 2 of the federal law On Introducing Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation to Regulate the Activities of Non-Governmental Organisations Acting as Foreign Agents was submitted by the Ministry of Justice in execution of a Presidential instruction of November 12, 2012.

The draft law was submitted in order to establish additional legal grounds to allow the Ministry of Justice to conduct unscheduled inspections of non-governmental organisations where there is evidence that they are  in violation of the Russian legislation.

The document proposes setting out the following legal grounds for carrying out inspections of NGOs:

·        Expiry of the deadline for rectifying a violation outlined in a warning that has previously been issued to the non-governmental organisation by an authorised agency;

·        Appeals, complaints, statements and media reports received by an authorised agency from individuals, legal entities, state agencies and local government bodies pointing to signs of extremism in the activity of the non-governmental organisation;,

·        Information received by an authorised agency from state agencies and local government bodies about a violation of the Russian legislation by a non-governmental organisation in its field of activities;

·        The submission of an election commission request to conduct an inspection under Clause 4 of Article 35 of the federal law On Political Parties; Clause 13 of Article 59 of the federal law On the Main Guarantees of Election Rights of Russian Citizens and Their Right to Participate in Referendum;

·        An order/directive by the head of an authorised agency or its territorial division which has been issued in accordance with a Presidential or Government Directive, or in accordance with a prosecutor’s demand for conducting an unscheduled inspection during supervision of law-enforcement proceedings and under materials, complaints and appeals that have been received by prosecutors’ offices.

The draft law will be examined at a Government meeting.