Bitcoinophobia of St. Petersburg ships with blocking without victims

In the summer of 2016, a niche information and analytical website bitcoininfo.ru was blocked in Russia, where news and materials about bitcoin cryptocurrency are posted. The site was entered in the register of prohibited sites based on the decision of the Vyborgsky District Court of St. Petersburg dated July 18, 2016 (case No. 2-10119/2016), which was rendered without the participation of the site administration. The trial of blocking the site, as usual, was initiated by the local prosecutor, and the site’s administration learned about the judicial act only after actually restricting access to it (that is, at the time of execution of the court decision, when the monthly appeal period had expired) - the classic genre.

Lawyers of the “ Center for the Protection of Digital Rights ” have made it possible to restore the missed procedural term - an appeal against a court decision to block the website bitcoininfo.ru was sent to the St. Petersburg City Court for consideration. The appeal stated a number of serious “flaws” in the contested decision:
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► the administration of the site bitcoininfo.ru, which is obviously a person interested in this process, was not involved in the trial;
► in the current legislation of the Russian Federation there is no ban on the dissemination of information about cryptocurrency, electronic money and new technologies for mutual settlements;
► the site did not offer any transactions between participants of the cryptocurrency turnover on its platform.

Still, the court of first instance, guided by the position of the prosecutor, taking its roots from the statement of the Prosecutor General’s Office in 2014, ranked Bitcoin as a money surrogate, despite the fact that Russian legislation does not contain essential signs of money surrogates, which could be used to determine the legal status of means of payment (including electronic). Taking advantage of this gap in currency regulation, as well as Art. 27 FZ “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation”, which prohibits the circulation of money substitutes in Russia, the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg decided that information about the new payment system is harmful for Russian Internet users and should be out of harm's way to prohibit the distribution of cryptocurrency information.

Despite significant violations of procedural and substantive law, Roskomnadzor supported the decision of the court to ban the dissemination of information about Bitcoin and, in fact, advocated banning the trafficking of Bitcoin in Russia. Against the background of the current public discussion about the possibilities of legalizing cryptocurrencies in Russia, such a legal position looks rather ridiculous.

Moreover, when the Central Bank of the Russian Federation itself does not get tired of explaining that, speaking about “money surrogates,” I never equated to them cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin in particular. This position was once again voiced by the representative of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation at the forum “Blockchain: dialogue between business and government”, which was held on April 13 at the site of the ombudsman under the President of the Russian Federation on the rights of entrepreneurs:

“I would like to note: the Bank of Russia has never advocated a ban on cryptocurrency. The Bank of Russia is the only thing that did, it issued a warning in 2014 in the form of a press release that this could carry risks. ”
Head of Financial Technologies Department of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Vadim Kalukhov.

But one thing is a balanced and versatile discussion, and quite another is a harsh Petersburg justice.

February 13, 2017 a meeting on the appeal of the site administration bitcoininfo.ru was held. After the application of the protection of the owner of the site petition for consideration of the case according to the rules of first instance (with a full examination of evidence), the court took a short break. After deliberation, the panel of judges announced that the complaint was left without consideration, without any explanation. And now, after receiving the definition of the appeal , it became clear that the board of the St. Petersburg City Court decided not to delve into the process and the legal position of the site and refused to consider the complaint because the site owner and the domain name administrator were not case, the question of his rights and obligations was not resolved by the court .


The definition says: “The application of the prosecutor of the Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg raises the question of establishing the legal status of information material containing information on the possibility of using“ electronic currency Bitcoin (Bitcoin) ”as a means of payment, while the law prohibits the introduction in the territory of the Russian Federation other monetary units and the issuance of monetary substitutes, which is of legal significance for the inclusion of information in the Unified Register of Domain Names, web site indexes and network addresses owls, enabling the identification of sites in the network "Internet", containing the information the dissemination of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation.

The arguments of the applicant's appeal about the violation by the appealed decision of his rights and legitimate interests are untenable, since the court did not resolve the issue of any right of the applicant and did not impose any duties on him ”.

That is, the St. Petersburg City Court decided that the owner of the blocked site is NOT for anyone with respect to this legal process, he does not have the right to defend his interests in court, does not have to involve the owner of the website in court of first instance, and the right to He has no appeal appeal either.

How do you feel about the attitude of St. Petersburg bitcoinophobes to information as to ownerless and existing separately from its owner and distributor?

This is our second case in St. Petersburg , when judges come up with various ridiculous reasons to impede access to justice and, under various pretexts, not to consider appeals of site owners. We understand that St. Petersburg judges are afraid to admit a fair trial with adversarial parties, because prosecutors will have nothing to cover with the extensive evidence base of the Center’s lawyers that cryptocurrency and their circulation are not prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation, and then the decision will have to be annulled .

The judicial act is nothing more than an attempt to deny the website owner access to justice, which is even more blatant violation of the procedural law, the Constitution and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore, at present we are preparing a cassation and are going to the Presidium of the St. Petersburg City Court to give another fight for the legalization of cryptocurrency in Russia and the abolition of unjust judicial acts.