Russian Consitution - Pt. 2

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Page: 3   ( 11) pages

Summary: Chapter 2, Human Rights and Freedoms; Articles 17 - 64.

Chapter 2:

HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Article 17

1) Human and civil rights and freedoms are guaranteed in the Russian Federation in accordance with generally recognized principles and norms of international law and in conformity with the present Constitution.

2) Basic human rights and freedoms are inalienable and belong to each person from birth onward.

3) The exercise of human and civil rights and freedoms must not violate the rights and freedoms of others.

Article 18

Human and civil rights and freedoms are direct-acting. They determine the meaning, content and application of laws and the activity of the legislative and executive branches and of local self-government and are safeguarded by justice.

Article 19

1) All are equal before the law and the courts.

2) The State guarantees equality of human and civil rights and freedoms regardless of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property and position, place of residence, attitude toward religion, convictions, membership of public associations, and also other circumstances. Any forms of restriction of citizens' rights on grounds of social, racial, national, linguistic or religious affiliation are prohibited.

3) Men and women have equal rights and freedoms and equal opportunities to exercise them.

Article 20

1) Each person has the right to life.

2) Until its abolition the death penalty can be prescribed by federal law as the supreme penalty for particularly grave crimes against life, the accused being granted the right to trial by jury.

Article 21

1) The dignity of the individual is protected by the State. Nothing may be grounds for disparaging it.

2) No one must be subject to torture, violence or other brutal or humiliating treatment or punishment. No one may be subject to medical, scientific or other experiments without their voluntary consent.

Article 22

1) Each person has the right to freedom and inviolability of the person.

2) Arrest, taking into custody and keeping in custody are permitted only by judicial decision. An individual cannot be detained for a period of more than forty eight hours without a judicial decision.

Article 23

1) Each person has the right to inviolability of his private life, individual and family privacy, and defense of his honor and good name.

2) Each person has the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations and postal, telegraph and other communications. Limitation of this right is permitted only on the basis of a judicial decision.

Article 24

1) The collection, storage, utilization and dissemination of information about a person's private life without his consent are not permitted.

2) Organs of State power and organs of local self-government and their officials are obliged to ensure that each person has the opportunity to see documents and materials directly affecting his rights and freedoms unless otherwise provided by law.

Article 25

Dwellings are inviolable. No one is entitled to enter a dwelling against the wishes of the persons residing there except in cases prescribed by federal law or on the basis of a judicial decision.

Article 26

1) Each person is entitled to determine and indicate his own nationality. No one may be compelled to determine and indicate his own nationality.

2) Each person has the right to use his native language and to the free choice of language of communication, education, instruction and creativity.

Article 27

1) Each person who is legally present on the territory of the Russian Federation has the right freely to travel and choose his place of stay and residence.

2) Each person may freely travel outside the Russian Federation. The citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to return without impediment to the Russian Federation.

Article 28

Each person is guaranteed freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, including the right to profess any religion individually or together with others, or not to profess any, and freely to choose, hold and disseminate religious and other convictions and to act in accordance with them.

Article 29

1) Each person is guaranteed freedom of thought and speech.

2) Propaganda or agitation exciting social, racial, national, or religious hatred and enmity is not permitted. Propaganda of social, racial, national, religious, or linguistic supremacy is prohibited.

3) No one may be compelled to express his opinions and convictions or to renounce them.

4) Each person has the right freely to seek, receive, pass on, produce, and disseminate information by any legal method. The list of information constituting a State secret is determined by federal law.

5) The freedom of mass information is guaranteed. Censorship is prohibited.

Article 30

1) Each person has the right of association, including the right to create trade unions to protect his interests. The freedom of the activity of public associations is guaranteed.

2) No one may be compelled to join or to remain in any association.

Article 31

Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to assemble peacefully without weapons and to hold meetings, rallies and demonstrations, processions, and pickets.

Article 32

1) Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to take part in the administration of the State's affairs both directly and via their representatives.

2) Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to elect and to be elected to organs of State power and organs of local self-government, and also to take part in referendums.

3) Citizens deemed incompetent by a court and also those detained in places of imprisonment by sentence of a court do not have the right to elect and to be elected.

4) Citizens of the Russian Federation have equal access to State service.

5) Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to take part in the administration of justice.

Article 33

Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to appeal personally and also to send individual and collective appeals to State organs and organs of local self-government.

Article 34

1) Each person has the right to make free use of his abilities and property for purposes of entrepreneurial activity and other economic activity not prohibited by law.

2) Economic activity directed toward monopolization and unscrupulous competition is not permitted.

Article 35

1) The right of private ownership is protected by law.

2) Each person is entitled to own property and to possess, utilize, and dispose of it both individually and together with others.

3) No one may be deprived of his property except by court decision. The compulsory expropriation of property for State requirements may be carried out only if full compensation is paid in advance.

4) The right to inheritance is guaranteed.

Article 36

1) Citizens and their associations are entitled to hold land in private ownership.

2) Owners freely possess, utilize, and dispose of land and other natural resources provided that this does not damage the environment and does not violate the rights and legitimate interests of others.

3) The conditions and procedure for the use of land are defined on the basis of federal law.

Article 37

1) Labor is free. Each person has the right freely to dispose of his abilities for labor and to choose a type of activity and occupation.

2) Forced labor is prohibited.

3) Each person has the right to work in conditions meeting the requirements of safety and hygiene and to receive remuneration for labor without any discrimination and of not less than the minimum pay prescribed by federal law, and also the right to protection from unemployment.

4) The right to individual and collective labor disputes utilizing the methods of solving them prescribed by federal law, including the right to strike, is recognized.

5) Each person has the right to leisure. Persons working on the basis of a labor contract are guaranteed the working hours, days off, and holidays prescribed by federal law and paid annual leave.

Article 38

1) Maternity and childhood and the family are under the State's protection.

2) Concern for children and their upbringing are the equal right and duty of the parents.

3) Able-bodied children who have reached the age of eighteen years must look after disabled parents.

Article 39

1) Each person is guaranteed social security in old age, in the event of sickness, disability, or loss of breadwinner, for the raising of children, and in other cases prescribed by law.

2) State pensions and social benefits are prescribed by law.

3) Voluntary social insurance, the creation of additional forms of social security, and charity are encouraged.

Article 40

1) Each person has the right to housing. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of housing.

2) Organs of State power and organs of local self-government encourage housing construction and create the conditions for exercise of the right to housing.

3) Housing is provided free or at affordable cost to low-income and other citizens indicated in the law who require housing form State, municipal, and other housing stocks in accordance with the norms prescribed by law.

Article 41

1) Each person has the right to health care and medical assistance. Medical assistance in State and municipal health care establishments is provided to citizens for free by means of funds from the relevant budget, insurance contributions, and other revenue.

2) In the Russian Federation federal programs to protect and strengthen the population's health, the population's health are financed, measures to develop State, municipal, and private health care systems are taken, and activities conducive to strengthening of people's health, the development of physical culture and sport, and ecological and sanitary and epidemiological well-being are encouraged.

3) The concealment by officials of facts and circumstances creating a threat to people's lives and health entails responsibility in accordance with federal law.

Article 42

Each person has the right to a decent environment, reliable information about the state of the environment, and compensation for damage caused to his health or property by ecological offenses.

Article 43

1) Each person has the right to education.

2) General access to free preschool, basic general, and secondary vocational education in State or municipal educational establishments and in enterprises is guaranteed.

3) Each person is entitled on a competitive basis to receive free higher education in a State or municipal educational establishment or in an enterprise.

4) Basic general education is compulsory. Parents or persons in loco parentis ensure that children receive basic general education.

5) The Russian Federation establishes federal State educational standards and supports various forms of education and self-education.

Article 44

1) Each person is guaranteed freedom of literary, artistic, scientific, technical, and other types of creation and teaching. Intellectual property is protected by law.

2) Each person has the right to participate in cultural life and use cultural institutions and to have access to cultural treasures.

3) Each person must display concern for preserving the historical and cultural heritage and look after historical and cultural monuments.

Article 45

1) State protection of human and civil rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation is guaranteed.

2) Each person is entitled to protect his rights and freedoms by any methods not prohibited by law.

Article 46

1) Each person is guaranteed judicial protection of his rights and freedoms.

2) The decisions and actions (or inaction) of organs of State power, organs of local self-government, public associations, and officials can be appealed in court.

3) Each person is entitled, in accordance with the Russian Federation's international treaties, to appeal to interstate organs for the protection of human rights and freedoms if all available means of legal protection inside the State have been exhausted.

Article 47

1) No one can be deprived of the right to have the case against him heard by the court and the judges to whose jurisdiction it is assigned by the law.

2) Anyone accused of having committed a crime has the right to have the case against him heard by a court and jury as provided by federal law.

Article 48

1) Each person is guaranteed the right to receive qualified legal assistance. Legal aid is rendered free of charge as provided by law.

2) Each detainee held in custody and accused of having committed a crime has the right to benefit from the assistance of a lawyer (defense attorney) from the moment of his detention, placing inn custody, or indictment.

Article 49

1) Each person accused of having committed a crime is presumed innocent until his guilt is proved as provided by federal law and established by means of a legitimate court sentence.

2) The accused is not obliged to prove his innocence.

3) Any undispelled doubts regarding the individual's guilt are interpreted in the accused's favor.

Article 50

1) No one can be tried a second time for the same crime.

2) The use of any proof acquired in breach of the federal law is not permitted in the administration of justice.

3) Each person sentenced for a crime has the right to have his sentence reviewed by a superior court as provided by federal law, as well as the right to appeal for pardon or a reduction of sentence.

Article 51

1) No one is obliged to testify against himself or against his spouse or close relatives, the range of the latter being defined by federal law.

2) Other instances when the obligation to give evidence is lifted can be laid down by federal law.

Article 52

The rights of the victims of crimes or of abuses of power are protected by law. The State guarantees the victims' access to justice and to compensation for damage caused.

Article 53

Each person has the right to compensation from the State for damage caused by the unlawful action (or inaction) of organs of State power or their officials.

Article 54

1) No law establishing or mitigating liability can be retroactive.

2) No one can be held liable for any act which, at the time it was committed, was not considered to be in breach of the law. If liability for a breach of the law is abolished or mitigated after an act has been committed, the new law is applied.

Article 55

1) The listing of basic rights and freedoms in the Constitution of the Russian Federation must not be interpreted as negating or diminishing other universally recognized human and civil rights and freedoms.

2) Laws abolishing or diminishing human and civil rights and freedoms must not be promulgated in the Russian Federation.

3) Human and civil rights and freedoms can be curtailed by federal law only to the extent to which it may be necessary for the purpose of protecting the foundations of the Constitutional system, morality, and the health, rights, and legitimate interests of other individuals, or of ensuring the country's defense and the State's security.

Article 56

1) Individual restrictions of rights and freedoms can be introduced, with an indication of their extent and duration, in a state of emergency in order to ensure the safety of citizens and the protection of the constitutional system in accordance with federal constitutional law.

2) A state of emergency may be introduced throughout the territory of the Russian Federation or in individual localities thereof in the circumstances and according to the procedure provided by federal constitutional law.

3) The rights and freedoms contained in Articles 20, 21, 23 (Part 1), 24, 28, 34 (Part 1), 40 (Part 1) and 46-54 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation may not be restricted.

Article 57

Each person is obliged to pay legitimately levied taxes and duties. Laws introducing new taxes or detrimental to the taxpayer's situation cannot be retroactive.

Article 58

Each person is obliged to protect nature and the environment and to show solicitude for natural wealth.

Article 59

1) The protection of the fatherland is the duty and obligation of citizens of the Russian Federation.

2) Citizens of the Russian Federation perform military service as provided by federal law.

3) In the event that the convictions or religious beliefs of a citizen of the Russian Federation are at odds with the performance of military service, as well as in other instances as provided by federal law, the citizen has the right to perform alternative civil service as a substitute.

Article 60 A citizen of the Russian Federation can autonomously exercise his rights and obligations in full from the age of eighteen years.

Article 61

1) A citizen of the Russian Federation cannot be expelled from the Russian Federation or extradited to another state.

2) The Russian Federation guarantees the protection and patronage of its citizens outside its borders.

Article 62

1) A citizen of the Russian Federation can hold citizenship of a foreign state (dual citizenship) as provided by federal law or an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

2) The fact that a citizen of the Russian Federation holds citizenship of a foreign state does not diminish his rights and freedoms or exempt him from obligations stemming from Russian citizenship, unless otherwise provided by federal law or an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

3) Foreign citizens and stateless persons in the Russian Federation enjoy equal rights and bear equal obligations with citizens of the Russian Federation, except when otherwise provided by federal law or an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Article 63

1) The Russian Federation offers political asylum to foreign citizens and stateless persons in accordance with the universally recognized norms of international law.

2) The Russian Federation does not permit the extradition to other states of persons persecuted for their political beliefs or for actions (or inactions) which are not considered a crime in the Russian Federation. The extradition of persons accused of having committed a crime, or the extradition of sentenced persons to serve their sentence in other states, is performed on the basis of federal law or an international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Article 64

1) The provisions of this chapter comprise the foundations of the individual's legal status in the Russian Federation and cannot be amended except by the procedure established by the present Constitution.

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three |
Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six |
Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine |
Section Two | Index |

Midnight Diaries