Press Release, 18.06.2025

Photo: Legislative Assembly of St Petersburg / Photo by the St.Petersburg parliament Press Service

The Yabloko faction in the St Petersburg Legislative Assembly has prepared and submitted to the St.Petersburg parliament a draft federal law on restoring passive electoral rights for Russian citizens included in the “foreign agents” registry.

According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 32, Part 2), every Russian citizen has the right to be elected to state and local government bodies. This right can only be restricted for persons declared legally incapacitated by a court or held in places of detention. There are no mentions of “foreign agents” in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, in 2024, there was adopted a law prohibiting persons included in the “foreign agents” registry from holding elected and other positions in public authorities. This decision is repressive and discriminatory in nature, and directly contradicts the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, which has repeatedly indicated that “foreign agent” status cannot entail any discrimination.

“Foreign agent” is a political stigma for those who receive neither foreign funding nor any foreign support, but allow themselves to disagree with the authorities’ policies, a sort of “yellow star” for opponents of goverment. This stigma is applied by Ministry of Justice officials, without trial, and virtually without the possibility of getting rid of it.

“We believe that a Russian citizen cannot be deprived of the constitutional right to be elected by a completely arbitrary, as practice shows, decision of officials,” St.Petersburg Yabloko emphasises.

The Yabloko faction’s bill is aimed at restoring the constitutional principle of equal rights and excluding the “foreign agent” status from the list of grounds for restricting the right to be elected to the bodies of power.

Yabloko is convinced that the right to be elected belongs to every citizen, not only to those whom the authorities consider “loyal”. The Constitution is above bureaucratic lists, and the path to free elections begins with restoring the rights of everyone who has lawful grounds to participate in elections.

The parliamentary pro-government majority in St.Petersburg did not even want to discuss the initiative, excluding it from the agenda, however the work aimed at restoring of equality of all citizens before the law is not finished.

Yabloko has already prepared and submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Court to verify the constitutionality of legislation on “foreign agents”. Yabloko finds this legislation anti-constitutional and calls to repeal it.