The aircraft explained the deadline for the submission of the final financial report to election candidates

The general rules for calculating the terms of bringing to administrative liability do not apply to the election participants, the Supreme Court explained: for them the deadlines are determined by election legislation. This means that on the first day, the next weekend, it is better not to postpone important candidates.

The Supreme Court (Sun) in his first review of practice drew the attention of lower instances to the fact that in order to determine the deadline for submitting the candidates of the final financial report, they should not be guided by the norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses), but by the rules enshrined in election legislation. The reason for the clarification was the case of the ex-candidate for deputies of the People’s Khural (parliament) of Buryatia of the seventh convocation from the “new people” of Maxim Kireenko, whom the District Heborn tried to hold accountable for the untimely delivery of the final financial report.

Recall that according to the law, each participant in the elections after the completion of the campaign is obliged not later than 30 days from the date of the official publication of the results to submit to the election commission information about all the funds received and spent on it. Mr. Kireenko did so. True, since the term set out by law expired on Sunday, he submitted a report on Monday.

As a result, the justice of the judicial section No. 2 of the Oktyabrsky district Ulan-Ude fined the ex-candidate for being late for one day.

Next, the district court abolished this fine by terminating the case due to the lack of an administrative offense. The appellation authority referred to the Normal Code of Administrative Offenses, explaining: if the end of the period calculated by the days falls on a non -working day, then the last day is considered the first work behind it. This norm appeared relatively recently – in 2023, when the legislator had to clarify the procedure for calculating the terms of administrative penalties after the decision of the Constitutional Court, which has set up for motorists and obliged to eliminate uncertainty on the statute of limitations of bringing to administrative responsibility.

However, subsequently, the cassation instance abolished the decision of the district court, referring to the law on the basic guarantees of electoral rights, which does not provide for any amendments on weekends. The Armed Forces supported this position, but at the same time he came to the conclusion that, within the time limit established by law, Mr. Kireenko still met, since the courts were mistaken with the calculation: the first day should be considered the following by the date of the official publication of the elections, and the latter following the day in which the 30-day period expires.

So the ex-candidate will not have to pay a fine.

The electoral lawyer Garein Mitin considers such a decision logical. It recalls that the elections have its own specifics: when calculating the deadlines of electoral actions, the weekend is practically not taken into account, since the commissions work without them, so you should not count on weekends. The clarification of the Armed Forces may turn out to be quite relevant for the election participants, the expert adds: if earlier not only candidates, but also election commissions often forgot about financial reports, now attention to financial discipline is clearly intensified. Very indicative in this respect became Finesawarded for the lack of financial discipline to the ex-candidate for president Boris Nadezhdin, recalls Mr. Mitin.

Anastasia Root