14.05.09

President Dmitri Medvedev has established a working group, headed by Vladislav Surkov, to work on measures to liberalize the law on non-profit organizations (NPOs). The group has three weeks to present a draft of a new bill. It is chaired by Vladislav Surkov, senior deputy head of the presidential administration. Members include Larisa Brycheva, head of the presidential administration's legal affairs directorate; Deputy Justice Minister Alexei Velichko; Yaroslav Kuzminov, rector of the Higher School of Economics; and NPO-NGO representatives.

Straight after a package of amendments to NPO legislation was passed in 2006, it was described as "anti-community" due to its cumbersome procedures of registration and oversight for non- governmental organizations. Medvedev promised a month ago that this legislation may be corrected.

In effect, the working group is already busy: Surkov has chaired a meeting where all sides agreed on almost all necessary amendments to the 2006 legislation. Registration bodies will no longer be empowered to demand more documents from NPOs than indicated in the legislation (at present they can demand unlimited documents). The requirement to have paperwork completed "properly" also has to go (it has enabled bureaucrats to pick at every letter). The law will also lose the point that makes it possible to deny registration to a foreign NPO on the grounds that its activities pose a threat to ethnic identity or cultural heritage (the point about national interests remains). The only controversial position is the requirement for NPOs to submit information about founders and addresses when applying for registration; the Justice Ministry insists on this, though commercial organizations are not required to do so.

According to Kuzminov, these amendments may be submitted to the Duma as soon as before the parliament's summer recess.

Yuri Dzhibladze, working group member and president of the Democratic Development and Human Rights Center, says: "Surkov was the chief negotiator for the presidential administration when the amendments were being discussed." Dzhibladze suggests that since Surkov is chairing the group, President Medvedev must be really serious about this issue.

Rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina says that the NPO legislation of 2006 was like a "go get 'em" signal to the state bureaucracy with regard to non-profit and non-governmental organizations; so it's very important that the opposite order should be heard loud and clear now.

Translated by InterContact.

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Source: Vedomosti