The KS will decide whether it is possible to punish for failure to comply with underfunded powers
The Constitutional Court will check the provisions of the law that protects municipal officials from punishment for non -functioning powers. The initiator of the request was the judge of the Kostroma Regional Court, in the opinion of which recently adopted amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses) allow non -executive officials to evade responsibility. Earlier, during the discussion of the bill, similar fears arose among some deputies.
The Constitutional Court (KS) adopted for consideration the request of the Kostroma regional court, which asks to verify the new edition of Art. 24.5 Code of Administrative Offenses. It provides for the possibility of exempting officials from administrative responsibility for non -fulfillment of duties if the powers transferred to them were not accompanied by sufficient financing. This was reported on the website of the KS.
Such a norm appeared in the legislation quite recently: the State Duma adopted the relevant amendments prepared by the government on behalf of the president at the end of last year.
Moreover, even during the discussion of the bill in the first reading, some deputies expressed fear that irresponsible leaders would be withdrawn from the strike (see. « Kommersant » dated October 31, 2024).
Judging by the text of the request, which “Kommersant” got acquainted with the judge of the Kostroma court, Anatoly Shagabutdinov, similar concerns. He is now considering the complaint of the administration of Kostroma, which is seeking to cancel the fine imposed on it for failure to fulfill the obligation to allocate housing orphans.
The Sverdlovsk District Court of Kostroma issued the corresponding decision in August 2021. Six months later, the bailiffs fined the administration for its failure to fulfill 30 thousand rubles. In 2023 and 2024, repeated fines followed, since the decision remained unfulfilled. According to the court of the court, the violation of the executive discipline by the municipal authorities became typical, as well as problems with the provision of orphans by housing upon reaching adulthood: last year, one of the decisions of the Sverdlovsk district court was noted, 203 relevant enforcement proceedings were listed in the register, and the total amount of the city administration under Art. 17.15 Code of Administrative Offenses of fines by August 2023 exceeded 27 million rubles.
Over the years, the courts confirmed fines imposed by bailiffs on municipal authorities, rejecting the explanations of the administration that referred to the lack of funding.
However, now in the Code of Administrative Offenses there is a norm that authorities cannot be held accountable for non -fulfillment of authority if budget allocations for appropriate goals have not been allocated or allocated in insufficient amount.
Therefore, now the Kostroma administration requires a revision of decisions: the amendments adopted in 2024 improve the position of a person brought to administrative responsibility, which means they have return.
However, judge Shagabutdinov is not sure that the city administration, as required by the law, made all possible efforts to execute a court decision. In particular, he notes, the city authorities did not inform the governor that he was not able to fulfill the authority in connection with the lack of subsidies, and did not file a complaint about the refusal of the head of the region to satisfy their petition.
True, the city administration filed a lawsuit against the regional department of finance and other units regarding interaction in the calculation of subventions, but did not raise the issue of terminating the powers transferred to it, the judge notes. He fears that the application of the new norm of the Code of Administrative Offenses “in a truncated form”, that is, without taking into account the inaction of the local government, leaves the right of the claimers without protecting the right of state, because the state -owned body, which did not provide financing, can also not.
Earlier, the COP has already expressed several times that the vesting of local self -government is possible only while providing the necessary financing, for example, when he was versed in the order of liquidation of unauthorized landfills.
However, it is difficult to predict what the court decision on this case will be, according to Olga Kryazhkova, associate professor of the Department of Constitutional Law of the Russian State University of Justice.
She notes that the court that sent a request to the Constitutional Court, in this case, is aimed at protecting the public interest, which consists in making a fair decision. And the law, according to the applicant, interferes with this, creating unreasonable advantages to the defendant of the case. In the practice of KS, the requests of ships are periodically dictated by such motives, and the CS, as a rule, listens to the position of applicants, the expert notes.
