The response from the Tverskoy district court of Moscow is a sad surprise for IIFD lawyers. Moreover, it appears to be not the first case of the same kind: citizens receive similar advices not to “intervene” in activities of officials subordinate to the Presidential Administration – and sometimes tell nobody about them.

Last year IIFD lawyers applied to the head of the Presidential Administration department for processing citizens’ applications but no reply has been received within the term defined by legal norms. So an application contesting the official’s lack of action was filed to the Tverskoy district court of Moscow.

At last the IIFD has received the court definition rejecting the application and stating the following:
“Contesting in court actions of state power bodies and their officials subordinate directly to the President of the Russian Federation, as well as bringing suits against these state bodies, means practically direct or indirect intervention to constitutional/legal and other activities of the President of Russia as the state head that has immunity and performs supreme state power in the Russian Federation; this is inadmissable and violating the Russian Federation constitutional system basic principles together with the power segregation principle stated in the Article 10 of the Russian Constitution”.

Not for the Very First Time
The same wording appears to be used in court responses to citizens not for the first time. In spring 2009, another judge of the same court used identical wording when answering a lawyer’s request. In the 2009 fall, a claim from a citizen concerning a personal trouble of hers was not accepted for review with the same explanation.

We should clarify that both claims addressed only specific cases when individual officials working with citizens had not fulfilled their duties. And the Tverskoy district court neglects the Constitution, extending presidential immunity to working duties of presidential administration.

Themis Closes Her Eyes
A strange, poorly grounded court definition itself would look not so discouraging; but the IIFD regularly meets more particular difficulties.

The Russian FOI law is actual since January 1, 2010, but we can already state that courts interprete the term “information on activities of government bodies and bodies of local self-government” rather narrowly.

For example, as Darya Nazarova, IIFD senior lawyer, recalls, the Supreme Court of Russian Federation refused to consider data of unified state registers or technical regulation documents (such as national standards). Thus, one cannot be suprised that lower instance courts follow the same way.

They tend to understand “information on activities” as “minimal basic official information”. Ans a request for information is treated as an intervention to state affairs and to constitutional system.

In China, there had been “shadow” institution when family mambers of “shadow-giving” state official had got many privileges and were frred from responsibility for anumber of crimes. Of course the higher wss the “shadow-giver” status, the wider was the “shadow” range¹.

Hoping that Russia in the XXI century will not follow medieval China, the IIFD lawyers will contest the scandalous court definition in the Moscow City Court.

¹ “History of State and Law in Foreign Countries. Part 1. Guidebook for Universities. Eds: Prof. N. A. Krasheninnikova, Prof. O.A. Zhidkov. — Moscow: NORMA-INFRA Publisher Group. – 1998. Chapter 31 (in Russian).