The Constitutional Court ruled that a picketer can only be detained for his protection

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled that law enforcement officers have the right to deliver a citizen who staged a solo picket to the police station in order to protect his life and health, but only if the threat is real and not supposed, and there is no other option to eliminate this threat.

According to TASS, the reason for the consideration was the complaint of Vladimir Sergienko from Belgorod, who was detained by police officers 25 minutes after the start of a solitary picket. He was taken to the police station and released an hour later. The courts confirmed that the police acted within the law.

The decisions indicated that during the action there was a threat to the life of the picketer from the side of the townspeople who disagreed with him, and he was taken to the police for his own safety. Sergienko considered that the law violated his right to personal integrity, as well as the right to hold meetings, rallies and pickets, and applied to the Constitutional Court for protection.

The Constitutional Court recognized the challenged norm of the law “On Police” as not contradicting the Constitution, taking into account its interpretation by the court.

The decision of the Constitutional Court states that the current legal regulation provides for “sufficient regulatory conditions” for single-person picketing to be used by citizens with virtually no restrictions. The police ensure order and protect against possible threats and picketers, but their actions must be proportionate to the nature and extent of the threats.

Thus, the threat to the life and health of a lone picketer must be real, not supposed. The police have the right to bring the picketer to the department only if they have no other way to eliminate the threat to his safety and resist it without stopping the picket, or if this is the only way to protect him.

In addition, in this case, he must be delivered to the police department as soon as possible and after the protocol is drawn up. “If the grounds for applying this measure to him have disappeared, the citizen is subject to immediate release,” the court notes.

“The application by the police of this measure to citizens holding a solitary picket, in the absence of the named grounds for its application, can be regarded as an unlawful restriction of constitutional rights to freedom and personal integrity and to hold public events, entailing liability established by law,” the court ruled.

The applicant’s case will be reviewed.