Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Ella Pamfilova supported the Moscow City Court decision to disclaim the GOLOS Association to have a foreign agent status.

“This is a good precedent. I am satisfied with the fact that the court passed this judgement based on the strict rule of law. There is still a range of NGOs in relation to which we will apply to court,” Ms Pamfilova said about removal of some organisations from the foreign agents registry.

The GOLOS Association and its head Lilia Shabanova appealed to the Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights referring to the judgement by the Justice of the Peace of Moscow Presnensky District to find them guilty for violation of operating procures established for a non-commercial organisation functioning as a foreign agent. They were fined to the amounts of 300,000 and 100,000 rubles respectively. No any positive result was achieved after appealing against these judgements to Moscow Presnensky District Court.

Having studied the appeal’s data and analysed the current law, the Commissioner complained to the Constitutional Court of Russia about the inconsistency of the Russian Constitution with some provisions of the Russian Administrative Offence Code and the Federal Law On Non-commercial Organisations.

Following the consideration of the complaint, the Constitutional Court judgement No. 10-P dated April 8, 2014 explained the disputable provisions of law, so that it implied the review of the court decisions related to the GOLOS Association and its former head.

In this respect the Commissioner prepared a petition to revoke the previously passed court judgements and close the proceedings related to the administrative offences.

On 1st September 2014 the Moscow City Court Deputy Chairperson’s judgement satisfied the petitions of the Commissioner for defence of the GOLOS Association’s rights, so that the illegal court judgements in relation to the organisation and its executive director Lilia Shabanova were revoked.