LENINGRAD
OBLAST
COURT JUSTIFIES BAN OF "SACRED SCRIPTURES" BY ABSENCE OF WORD
"BIBLE" IN TITLE.
Jehovah's
Witnesses
in Russia, 24 January 2018
The
reasoning
portion of the appellate determination of 20 December 2017
regarding the ban of
the translation of the Bible under the publisher's title "Sacred
Scripture—New World Translation" was issued by the Leningrad
oblast court
three weeks on. The court had to find a way to evade the direct
instruction of
the law "On combating extremist activity": "The Bible, Quran,
Tanakh, and Kangyur, their contents, and quotations from them
may not be ruled
to be extremist materials." The court found an argument, and
this argument
is an novelty that was not presented in the course of the
judicial
proceedings.
The
court
determined: "Arguments that the book in a gray cover in the
Russian
language with the title 'Sacred Scripture—New World Translation'
is a Bible are
rejected inasmuch as the book does not contain the corresponding
label 'Bible,'
which is required by the system of standards for information,
librarianship,
and publication business (GOST 7.80-2000), and actually is a
translation into
the Russian language that is based on a translation into the
English language
of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek texts, with substantial
changes, whose
existence is acknowledged by the authors of the 'New World
Translation'
themselves." No other rationale is presented in the court's
reasoning.
During
the
course of the judicial proceedings, GOST 7.80-2000 was not
mentioned by either
the transport prosecutor, who sought the ban of the Bible, or by
representatives of the publisher. The aforementioned standard,
according to
part 1, governs the work of libraries and other organizations
that conduct
bibliographic activity. It prescribes that workers in libraries
"in
composing bibliographic notes on an edition of anonymous
classical works,
published under various titles, and editions of texts of sacred
scriptures and liturgical
books published in the 16th and 17th centuries and that have
diverse complex
titles," use the uniform, most well-known title. For example, if
the
edition contains the whole text of the Bible, it should,
according to the
aforesaid GOST ["GOsudarstvenyi STandard"--"state standard"], be
written as "Bible," if the edition contains only
the Old Testament [Vetkhii Zavet], it should be written as
"Bible. V.Z."
and if the edition bears the title Apocalypse, then it should be
written thus:
"Bible. N.Z. Apocalypse." [N.Z.="Novyi Zavet," i.e. New
Testament]. At the same time, the necessity in the aforesaid
GOST proceeds from
the fact that sacred scriptures were published in the Russian
language under
various titles, for example, "Book of Praises," "Tehillim,"
"Psalms of David," and "Psalter."
Thus,
the court
applied the aforesaid GOST 7.80-2000 erroneously, which led to a
substantial
violation of a standard of material law, to wit, to a
misapplication of the law
subject to application (the provision forbidding finding
religious texts to be
extremist materials, including the Bible). According to the
article of the Code
of Civil Procedure of the RF, this is a basis for overturning
the court's
decision.
The
proposition
that "Sacred Scripture—New World Translation" is not the Bible
inasmuch as the "book . . . actually is a translation into the
Russian
language based on a translation into the English language of
ancient Hebrew and
ancient Greek texts, with substantial changes," is devoid of
legal force
and it contradicts the facts and common sense. Inasmuch as the
Bible was not
written in the Russian language, for most people it always is a
translation.
Besides, many editions of the Bible, both in major as well as in
minor
languages, were the product of a two-step translation, that is,
a translation
made from a translation. For example, the translation of the Old
Testament part
of the Church Slavonic Bible, which before the present time was
officially used
in Orthodox liturgy, was made from the translation known as the
Septuagint. The
Synodal translation of the Bible, which is officially approved
in Orthodoxy for
domestic reading, also follows this tradition in many places.
The
groundless
decision of such a high judicial instance regarding the ban of
the Bible itself
clearly shows the perverseness of mechanisms for finding
materials to be
"extremist." Beginning in 2009, the Jehovah's Witnesses have
confronted the obviously groundless inclusion of their
liturgical materials in
the list of prohibitions. Subsequently these court decisions
became the basis
for accusing believers of "extremist activity," which in the end
was
turned into a total prohibition, confiscation of property,
fines, criminal
cases, and even prison terms for individual believers. (tr. by
PDS, posted 25
January 2018)
Russian legal expert comments on trial of Bible
December 21, 2017
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