#15 - JRL 2006-237 - JRL Home
Reasons for denying Kasyanov-Led Movement Registration Detailed

MOSCOW. Oct 23 (Interfax) - The Russian Popular Democratic Union (RPDU) led by former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has been denied registration because the documents submitted for obtaining registration as a legal entity were drawn up inaccurately, Galina Fokina, an acting head of the Russian Federal Registration Service's department for political parties, public and religious associations, told Interfax on Monday evening.

The documents cite inaccurate information on the union's executive body's address, Fokina said.

"Another violation is that the movement's name simultaneously refers to two organizational forms. They say it is an all-Russia public movement and - in parenthesis - a union, whereas the law stipulates that a union is one of the organizational legal forms of non-profit organizations, including an organizational legal form of a public association. The name is misleading, and you cannot understand from it whether it is a movement or a union, which violates the law," Fokina said.

"In addition, certain charter provisions contradict the law," she said.

"We have also found inaccurate information in the protocols of conferences on setting up regional branches, which were submitted to us. In three regions, people did not confirm the foundation of regional branches and their participation in those conferences," Fokina said.

The RPDU's presidium said in a press release earlier on Monday that it considers this decision by the Federal Registration Service "unwarranted and stemming from an erroneous interpretation of the existing law."

"In light of the government's negative attitude toward the very fact of the existence of independent non-governmental associations of people, these steps by the Federal Registration Service did not come as a surprise to the movement's activists," it says.

The RPDU will continue its activities in line with Russian law, it said.