© Artyom Korotayev/TASS
MOSCOW, February 6. /TASS/. The deputies of the LDPR faction Igor Lebedev, Yaroslav Nilov, Sergei Ivanov, and Andrei Svintsov has developed and will introduce on Monday to the state Duma a draft law abolishing criminal prosecution for systematic violations at the rallies. About TASS reported the press service of the liberal Democrats.
We are talking about the exception to the Criminal code article 212.1 of “Repeated violation of the established procedure of organizing or holding meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches or picketing”, the maximum sanction on which provides to five years of imprisonment.
As the authors note, “the formal basis for sentencing under article 212.1 of the criminal code is only the fact of repeated violation of the provisions of article 20.2 of the administrative code without regard to who is a participant in or organizer of a public event these violations are committed”. “It is obvious that the wording of article 212.1 of the criminal code provides for criminal liability of a person who has already incurred liability in the manner prescribed by the administrative code. Article 50 of the Constitution prohibits double punishment for one offense: “Nobody may be repeatedly sentenced for one and the same crime”, – emphasized in the liberal democratic party.
The deputies pointed out that “the authors of the draft law on the introduction of the article 212.1 of the criminal code of the Russian Federation in its making had only one purpose: the criminalization to prevent repeated violations of the law during public events.” “But the severity of the offense and the apparent stiffness and disproportion of punishment to the severity of the offence was not taken into account. Due to moral and political cost of such decision was unacceptably high for society as a whole and individual citizens in particular”, – the developers. With this as a precedent they cite Ildar Dading, who became the first sentenced to deprivation of liberty under article 212.1 of the criminal code.