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Fines for Russian news aggregators are too excessive under proposed draft law believes constitutional committee of Russian State Duma

Constitutional committee of Russian state duma believes additional responsibility and fines for owners of news aggregators are too excessive. Moreover fines are not proportionate to provisions of Russian administrative code. Committee members also mentioned there is no definition of “news aggregator” in current Russian law and draft law. Absence of such key definition causes “ambiguously interpretation of draft law” and can lead to inconsistent enforcement practice.

Committee members also believe draft law introduces excessive responsibility if news aggregators fail to comply with Russian Roskomnadzor’s orders. If subject of law fails to comply with order issued by state authority he faces fine under provisions of Russian administrative code, without any additional regulation. Therefore it is not necessary to provide additional regulation. In order to restrict access to information by Roskomnadzor’s request the draft law should provide the “scope, character and range” of new information, but it doesn’t. Committee also underlines the draft law also does not specify what exactly is infringement of law, there are not provided requirements to be abided.