The Federal Law ”On Amendments to the Federal Law on the Basic Guarantees of Russian Federation Citizens’ Electoral Rights and Right to take part in Referendums and the Russian Federation Civil Procedural Code“ clarifies electoral law provisions concerning the candidates put forward by political parties, the lists of candidates, the preparation of lists of signatures and the list of documents that candidates and authorised representatives of electoral groups are required to present to the electoral commission, and also the grounds for refusing to register a candidate or list of candidates and for cancelling or revoking their registration.
The law expands the list of people who cannot stand for election to state, regional and local bodies of power. This list includes: a) people sentenced to prison terms for serious and very serious crimes and also for crimes of an extremist nature, and who on the day of voting have not yet completed their sentences for these crimes; b) people on whom administrative punishment has been imposed for the public demonstration of Nazi symbols; c) people in respect of whom a court verdict that has taken force has established the fact of extremist acts committed during the mandate of authority of a state, regional or local body of power.
Candidates and political parties are banned from using air time on television channels to campaign against other candidates and political parties. Furthermore, the law removes the minimum voter turnout requirement for elections at every level.
According to the amendments made to the Civil Procedural Code, the prosecutor has the right to ask the court to protect electoral rights. The amendments also clarify the procedures for appeals against court decisions in cases regarding the protection of citizens’ electoral rights.