Igor Buga, "Public hearings mode has positive effect on legislative activities"

The parliamentary committee on public associations continues started by the previous convocation work on a new edition of the law "On non-profit organizations." Legislators of the VI convocation, wanting to accumulate offers those who will subsequently execute the law, organized a public hearing of the parliamentary platform.

The law-in-draft that became an occasion to debate introduced a fundamentally new concept of "foreign agent". Presented legislative initiatives in one package include a special procedure for control of revenues and expenditures of non-profit organizations. There is a growing responsibility, which is planned to register in the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Violations.

As explained by the Deputy Igor Buga, the budget deficit in times of crisis does not provide such an opportunity. According to the deputy, in the future the situation changes for the better, the issue of state support for national organization, may be considered.

It is the lack of awareness of members of the legal community organizations to focus on another problem during the hearings. They spoke of the need to create a coordinating council of non-profit organizations for the exchange of legal information.

Summing up the hearings, Igor Buga noted the importance of the accumulation of all the opinions voiced by representatives of NGOs for further work on the adopted in the first reading law-in-draft. The head of the profile committee invited representatives of non-governmental organizations to send their proposals in writing before March 2. In the future they will be codified and presented as amendments for the second reading of the law-in-draft. Plans of the Committee include a discussion of the most important, with great public interest law projects in this format, as public hearings.

Reference. At the same time rhe work on the law "On Noncommercial Organizations" is conducted in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. Legislators have to decide the issue of clarifying the concepts of political activities of NGOs. The amendments have been developed by the Ministry of Justice within the framework of the working group, which also included representatives of the Federal Tax Service, the Prosecutor General, the State Duma deputies, senators, heads of regions and human rights activists.

All this work has been organized on behalf of President Vladimir Putin, who at the request of human rights activists from the Human Rights Council has given the task to clarify the concept of political activity for NGOs.

The deputies of the four factions of the Duma introduced a law-in-draft to clarifying the definition of political activities for non-profit organizations. It is crucial for the inclusion of a sponsored from abroad NGO in foreign agents register.