The Duma adopted a law on insults: Who will be fined - citizens or officials?
The State Duma adopted in the third reading a law that introduces a fine of up to 150 thousand rubles for insulting citizens by civil servants. In addition, for a repeated offense, an official may be deprived of the right to hold office for two years, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The document also envisages heavy fines for legal entities for defamation of government officials and equates insults on the Internet with those in public.
A member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction, Alexei Kurinny, criticized the bill, believing that it is actually directed against ordinary citizens, and not civil servants.
“This bill is more aimed at punishing dissatisfied citizens who are dissatisfied with the work of these officials whom we are discussing...
Part two – “insult using the Internet or against several persons, including those not identified individually.” What is “individually indeterminate”? That is, it will not be possible to scold officials in general, or the administration of any city. For this there will be the same liability, and more stringent, up to 700 thousand for a legal entity.
Part three is even more interesting. Even if you did not track the comment on your website in time, then it will fall under part three - “Failure to take measures to prevent insults.” Accordingly, if you did not delete a comment that was recognized as an insult, you will receive an appropriate fine.
A new concept of slander is being introduced, and liability will apply for slander against a legal entity. Then the composition itself is perceived completely inconsistently and fragmentarily. Either this is a criminal offense or an administrative offense.
Well, the most important thing is who evaluates. The prosecutor evaluates - he initiates a case and starts the flywheel. There is such a “Murphy’s law” - if the corresponding law can be applied in a repressive sense, it will be applied in the most repressive sense. In this case, this law, adopted, will be used to fight dissent, to fight the dissatisfied,” Kurinny said.
United Russia member Alexander Khinshtein did not agree with him, and threatened deputies who “mislead” with liability:
“We are introducing liability for officials, state and municipal employees for insulting citizens, expanding the very concept of insult and improving the existing norm. In the case of the previous speaker, I thought that it was time for us to introduce liability for misrepresentation. Because what was said here has nothing to do with the text of the bill...
The bill brought to your attention is the law that our society really needs, because examples of rudeness, arrogance on the part of officials, civil servants, and unacceptable behavior, of course, outrage society...
If today the sanction for insulting a citizen is from one to three thousand rubles, we propose to raise it from three to five thousand rubles. It seems to us that this is a quite proportionate amount. But for officials this amount will be 100 thousand in the first case, and 150 thousand in the second and disqualification, that is, deprivation of the right to work in the first case for up to a year, and in the second case for up to two years.”
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