Russia's FSB Proposes Allowing Searches Without Court Approval

The FSB of Russia has prepared an instruction that will allow law enforcement officials to conduct searches of homes, apartments, and vehicles without a court order. The document has been published on the portal for normative legal acts, drawing attention from the newspaper "Parlamentskaya Gazeta." The discussion of the draft will continue until the end of May.

According to the document, court permission for searches will not be required in cases deemed "urgent and that may lead to the commission of serious or particularly serious crimes," as well as when there is data regarding events and actions that pose threats to Russia's "state, military, economic, informational or environmental security." The FSB must notify the court about the searches within 24 hours.

In this case, law enforcement officials will need to obtain a decision from one of the leaders of the security agency, such as the first deputy director of the FSB, heads of departments or divisions, their deputies, or leaders of territorial security agencies.

In other cases, searches or "inspections that limit the constitutional right to inviolability of private residences" are carried out only based on a court decision and in the presence of evidence of signs of a crime, individuals who committed the crime, and events that threaten national security.

Security forces will be permitted to seize suspicious documents and materials, as well as items that are illegal to possess, such as unregistered and unaccounted weapons, even if they are not connected to the case being searched.

The document also states that security forces may record searches using cameras and must use at least two witnesses. It is not necessary to involve them if searches are conducted in "hard-to-reach places and/or in the absence of appropriate means of communication," or if they may pose a threat to people's health and lives.