Challenging the use of foreign agent laws

In 2012, the Russian Parliament amended a number of laws relating to the funding and governance of civil society organisations (CSOs). These changes became known collectively as the ‘Foreign Agents Act’.

Progressive organisations in Russia had come to rely on funding from abroad. The ‘Foreign Agents Act’ sought to stigmatise these CSOs and the people who worked for them. It placed an extraordinary administrative burden on the CSOs, gave the state far-reaching and arbitrary investigative powers, and undermined CSOs’ ability to support vulnerable clients and hold the Russian Government accountable.

The case

In 2013, EHRAC and Russian partner lawyers brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on behalf of a number of CSOs that had been listed as ‘foreign agents’ under the ‘Act’ or whose officer(s) had been punished for breaching the legislation.

In 2021, the ECtHR accepted our request for interim measures to protect our litigation partner Memorial Human Rights Centre and its sister organisation International Memorial, from liquidation. Both were applicants in the case.

In 2022, the ECtHR found that Russia had violated the right of 73 CSOs to freedom of assembly and association. Attaching the label ‘foreign agent’ to CSOs had been ‘unjustified and prejudicial’ and could have a ‘strong deterrent and stigmatising effect on (the CSOs’) operations’. The use of terms like ‘political activities’ and ‘foreign funding’ were ambiguous.

What our litigation achieved

This judgment clarified a long-standing debate on foreign funding, with the ECtHR confirming that attempts by a member state to restrict the foreign funding of NGOs would amount to a violation of the freedom of association.

This judgment has been cited in three further ECtHR judgments. It was also referenced in the debate on a similar law in Georgia which we are now litigating.

The ECtHR’s decision to grant our request for interim measures to save Memorial and International Memorial from closure was an important and unprecedented development of the Court’s practice. On 8 March 2022, the ECtHR granted a further request ordering Russia to halt its attempts to close the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.