RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT RULES THAT A SIMPLE INVITATION TO A SERVICE IS NOT MISSIONARY ACTIVITY
by Attorney Sergei Chugunov
Religiia i Pravo, 2 April 2018
During the time that the evangelism portion of the "Yarovaya Package" has been in effect, the number of cases of administrative violations of law has already numbered in the hundreds. Many of these cases are like the case described below—they are extremely dangerous and the best efforts of law enforcement are involved in their investigation. The investigation of this dangerous violation of law began very seriously—it was conducted by the directorate of the Russian F.S.B. for Tambov oblast. It was they who, within the context of operational search activity, discovered the act of violation of existing legislation by citizen Stepanov. Then the F.S.B. referred to the prosecutor's office of Tambov district of Tambov oblast pertinent information for the purposes of adopting measures of prosecutorial response. The information was sent in the name of the chief of the directorate with the rank of general-major, which speaks of its extreme seriousness.
According to the information provided, citizen S.N. Stepanov posted on his page in the Vkontakte social network on 15 April 2017, with unrestricted access, an invitation to an Easter worship service of the religious organization "Source of Life." On the basis of the aforesaid act, the prosecutor's office instituted proceedings on an administrative violation of law against S.N. Stepanov on the basis of part 4 of article 5.26 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations of Law. On 10 July 2017, by order of a magistrate judge of the judicial district No. 1 of Tambov district of Tambov oblast, S.N. Stepanov was found guilty of committing an administrative violation of law, responsibility for which is provided by part 4 of article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law of the RF, with the assessment of a fine of 10,000 rubles. The appellate instance, the Tambov district court of Tambov oblast, left the ruling without change.
Thereby a dangerous violation of law was exposed and the guilty bore the punishment.
However, having not agreed that Stepanov's actions constituted the substance of the declared violation of law, we decided to send to the Russian Constitutional Court an appeal against the inconsistency of the application of the standards of law in this case with the constitution of the Russian federation. In particular, the appeal points out that, first, the standards of the law do not permit distinguishing the exercise by citizens of their right to freedom of religious confession, exercised by them in the form of dissemination their religious convictions individually and on their own personal initiative, from missionary activity. Second, is such activity that is directed to the dissemination of information about the teaching of a religious association activity that is the dissemination of information containing some postulates of the teaching of said religious association or is it even such activity as the simple announcement of events being conducted by a religious association?
On 13 March 2018, the Russian Constitutional Court issued a determination to refuse to accept the appeal for consideration. It should be noted that it is the usual practice of the court, when it issues a determination to refuse to accept an appeal, to give in the determination an interpretation of the standards being challenged. In most cases of appeal to the Constitutional Court, this is the goal of the plaintiffs.
In its determination in this case, the Constitutional Court gave an interpretation of the standards regulating missionary activity. I consider that this interpretation does not clear up the indefiniteness regarding the dissemination of personal religious convictions, since
there are dual wordings. But as to what is "dissemination of information about religious confession," we see an unambiguous answer.
Here is what the determination of the Constitutional Court says:
"Thus, as missionary activity of a religious association with respect to relations regulated by the federal law 'On freedom of conscience and religious association,' is understood to be activity that, first, is conducted by a special circle of persons (a religious association, its members, or other citizens and legal entities according to established procedure); second, is aimed at the dissemination of information about its religious confession (its religious postulates) among persons who are not participants (members, adherents) of said religious association; third, has the aim of involving the aforesaid persons in the ranks of participants (members, adherents) of the religious association by means of an appeal to their consciousness, will, or emotions, including by means of disclosure by the person conducting the missionary activity of his own religious views and convictions. In this, the distinguishing indicator of missionary activity is the dissemination by citizens or their associations of information about concrete religious teaching among persons who, while not being its adherents, are drawn into their midst, in the capacity, among others, of participants in specific religious associations.
"In other words, dissemination by a religious association, its members, and other outside persons of information about the activity of a given religious association and about events conducted by them, including worship services, and other religious rituals and ceremonies falls under the definition of missionary activity, as such, only if it contains the aforementioned indicator: the establishment of the fact of the conduct by a religious association, its members, or other persons of missionary activity on legal basis requires that, in addition to resolving other questions, exhibition of all indicators of missionary activity stated in point 1 of article 24.1 and point 2 of article 24.2 of the federal law 'On freedom of conscience and religious association' and its absence in the conduct of activity in the area of religious confessional relations is evidence that such activity cannot be characterized as missionary activity in the sense of the federal law 'On freedom of conscience and religious associations' and thus, even if it is conducted in violation of the requirements of legislation on freedom of conscience and freedom of religious confession and on religious associations, it does not constitute the essence of a violation of law in accordance with part 4 of article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law of the Russian Federation."
The fact of the conduct of missionary activity may be considered to be proven only in the case of the existence of all indicators stated in the law. This is clearly evident from the text of the law. However, in most cases, judges do not want to examine whether all indicators are displayed. Now, after what the Constitutional Court has said on this issue, I hope that courts will approach the consideration of this category of cases carefully, since the determination points out that "The delimitation of missionary activity from other forms of activity in the area of confessional relations, including what is intended for public information . . . is the prerogative of other competent bodies and courts, which in the resolution of the indicated questions requires, when necessary, the ordering of a religious studies expert analysis."
Regarding the second question—of what is "dissemination of information about religious confession,"--one can answer unambiguously: a simple invitation to a worship service cannot be considered missionary activity, since it does not contain "information about religious confession (its religious postulates)."
Thus it turns out that the aforementioned determination of the Russian Constitutional Court came out on the eve of Easter (for an invitation to which last year Stepanov was held accountable). Therefore, I hasten to cheer up all personnel of the F.S.B. that this year there is no need for them to spend their precious time searching on all social networks for law violators who are making invitations to Easter services. I hope that this fact has a positive effect on ensuring security within our country. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 April 2018)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.