Moscow City Court is on NGO side

News

Moscow City Court is on NGO side

18 October 2016

According to the Club of NGO Lawyers which provides comprehensive legal support to Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice (ARF) the Moscow City Court has refused the Ministry of Justice request to lay charges against ARF.

During the planned inspection carried out in May this year, the Moscow Bureau of the Ministry of Justice decided to include the ARF on the list of NGOs being considered as “foreign agents”. This resulted in the opening of an administrative offence case against the organization that could lead to fines ranging from 300 thousand to 500 thousand rubles.

Club of NGO Lawyers developed a legal defense strategy which turned out to be successful. On 30th of August 2016 the Court, in its very first hearing, dismissed the “foreign agent” charges against the Foundation due to the absence of any administrative violations. This was the first successful case of its kind in law enforcement practice in Moscow. Until then, cases like this had never been dismissed during the first hearing.

Click here to read the full article

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.