[adontz]

The way Russian authorities tend to interpret laws may be quite surprising. For example, Russian government insists they conduct Special Military Operation (SMO). It is enough to reference Russo-Ukrainian conflict as War, instead of SMO, even in private conversation, to get a few years in jail.

[gbuk2013]

I apologise for being pedantic (I am a programmer with a law degree and so have twice the inclination to be): can you provide specific examples of the FA law being interpreted in “surprising ways” especially in light of the GP concerns about a developer of some NPM package?

Here is a list of individuals designated as FAs (the Russian DOJ site doesn’t load for me so I can’t verify it right now). https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Список_иностранных_агентов_(... I recognise a few people on that list and can see why they are on it based on what I read online. Can you suggest some names that are surprising?

Just to be clear, we are discussing the interpretation of the law, rather than whether or not the law should exist in the first place - that’s an entirely different kettle of fish.

[adontz]

#5 Моргенштерн Алишер Тагирович Crazy rap performer.

#8 Чичваркин Евгений Александрович Businessman, moved to London before FA law was implemented.

#59 Новиков Илья Сергеевич Lawyer of Nadezhda Savchenko

I am not surprised they are on the list, this is how Russian Government operates. Interpretation of law is surprising by western standards.

[gbuk2013]

#5 is definitely suspicious reasoning - no surprise it is being appealed in the courts. That said, having read a little about this colourful persona, I have to admit my thought was “good job, he deserved it” although I know I really shouldn’t think like that. :) This is really an example of cancel culture, just done by the government. The problem is that there’s not really a law against being an arse and bringing in such a law would do more harm than good, so they are doing “the wrong thing for the right reasons”.

The other 2 cases seem pretty clear-cut and less than 0 sympathy from me personally.

FWIW, based on my experience in living in both systems there are some fundamental differences in culture that may help to get a better perspective: group has priority over individual; responsibilities / duties of the individual rather than rights; the more people you reach with what you say the higher the expectation that you will be a role model and the greater the censure if you don’t (sadly corruption and cronyism often gets in the way); a very strong “us” vs “them” mentality. I see these all the time playing out in different ways.

As for applying “western standards” I actually had a law lecturer (I studied and live in UK) argue that this sort of thing is an example of “cultural imperialism”. I would just caution that a thorough understanding of historic, social, geographical (and other) challenges should be considered before trying to import patterns from elsewhere. Governance is what we would call in IT a “hard problem”.

I’ll stop before this becomes an essay. :)

[adontz]

I guess it's fair to say that "western standard" is what an average EU judge does to an EU citizen, not King Leopold's ideas.