Interfax: Putin proposes bill on removing NGOs from foreign-agents list

(Interfax – MOSCOW, Feb 4, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a bill on how to remove nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the register of foreign agents.

The bill has been registered in the lower house’s electronic database.

Under the federal laws concerning public associations and NGOs functioning as a foreign agent, public associations which are legal entities and other NGOs are to be included in the register of foreign-agent NGOs, according to a memo to the document.

At the same time, the laws failed not to stipulate a possibility for such NGOs to be removed from the register, should they cease functioning as a foreign agent, the memo said.

“To fill this gap, this bill stipulates that for an NGO to be removed from the register, it should file a relevant application with an authorized federal body according to a form approved by this authorized body,” the document said.

Upon receiving the application the authorized federal executive body shall forthwith notify prosecutors and conduct an unscheduled inspection of the NGO, following which a decision will be made as to whether or not the applicant can be removed from the register of foreign-agent NGOs.

Under the bill, a decision to remove an NGO from the register shall be made, in particular, if the inspection found that the NGO did not receive any funds or other assets from foreign sources or did not participate in any political activity in Russia for a year prior to the application (three years for an NGO, which had previously been removed from the register).

Also, a decision on the removal from the register may be made if an NGO refused to receive funds and other assets from foreign sources and returned the funds and other assets to a foreign source, from which it has received them, no later than three months after being registered as a foreign agent.

“In such cases, an authorized federal executive body shall make a decision no later than three months after receiving an application from an NGO to be removed from the register of foreign-agent NGOs,” according to the memo.

A decision to remove an NGO from the register shall also be taken if the NGO ceases to operate as a result of its liquidation, re-organization or removal from the state register of legal entities. Such a decision shall be made no later than five days after a relevant entry was made in the state register of legal entities.

A decision not to remove from the register of foreign-agent NGOs shall be made by an authorized federal executive body if the inspection found that the NGO provided false data to support the claim that it ceased functioning as a foreign agent, according to the memo.

The decision may be appealed by the NGO.

The same rules and grounds for removal from the register shall apply to a public association being a legal entity.