Russia's 'foreign agents' law violates rights: Europe court

Russian laws requiring many activists, media organisations and individuals to register as "foreign agents" are arbitrary and violate human rights, Europe's top rights court found in a ruling published Tuesday.

The "legislation was stigmatising, misleading and used in an overly broad and unpredictable way," the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights said.

Judges found that Russia had breached plantiffs' rights to freedom of expression and association articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as the Article 8 right to a private life.

The Russian laws' "purpose was to punish and intimidate rather than to address any alleged need for transparency or legitimate concerns over national security," the court added.

The case was brought by 107 plaintiffs, including NGOs and media oufits, who saw the laws as part of a systematic campaign against rights defenders and government critics.

Prominent among them were the Memorial human rights organisation that has documented Soviet crimes and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Individual "journalists, human rights defenders, environmental activists, political scientists" and others joined the action, the court said.

Political NGOs receiving foreign funding have been required to publicise their status as "foreign agents" since 2012, under laws the ECHR found in 2022 violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

Media organisations and individual journalists and others followed later, with a 2022 law establishing a sweeping, catch-all definition.

Penalties include massive fines, with RFE/RL ordered to pay the equivalent of around 16 million euros .

So-called foreign agents are also barred from holding public office, receiving Russian state support, teaching at state institutions and producing content for minors.

In the most extreme cases, Memorial, the Movement for Human Rights and the League of Voters Foundation were all dissolved for alleged "gross and repetitive" breaches of foreign-agent labelling requirements.

For individuals and groups, "designation... as a 'foreign agent' had significantly hampered their activities, triggering additional accounting, auditing, reporting and labelling requirements and restricting their participation in the electoral process and/or organising public events," judges noted.

The court higlighted that opinion polls showed most of the Russian public "associated the term 'foreign agent' with 'traitors', 'spies' or 'enemies of the people'."

Concerning respect for private and family life, plaintiffs' personal data were published and they had to file "frequent and detailed" reports on their finances, which the court said was "to overburden and intimidate them".

Restrictions, including on practicing some professions and cutting off communications with young people, "could not be justified as being necessary in a democratic society," judges added.

The court ordered Russia to pay amounts ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 euros to the plaintiffs for non-financial harm and "various other amounts" for concrete financial harms.

The ECHR is part of the 46-member Council of Europe, the continent's top rights body and is separate from the European Union.

Russia was excluded from the Council of Europe in March 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine, but the court's rulings remain binding on it in cases dealing with events before that date.

Russia's parliament has passed amendments preventing Moscow from applying ECHR decisions issued since its exclusion.

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