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CHAPTER 2. Rights and Liberties of Man and Citizen

Article 17.
1. The basic rights and liberties in conformity with the commonly recognized principles and norms of the international law shall be recognized and guaranteed in the Russian Federation and under this Constitution.
2. The basic rights and liberties of the human being shall be inalienable and shall belong to everyone from birth.
3. The exercise of rights and liberties of a human being and citizen may not violate the rights and liberties of other persons.

Article 18.
The rights and liberties of man and citizen shall have direct effect. They shall determine the meaning, content and application of the laws, and the activities of the legislative and executive branches and local self- government, and shall be secured by the judiciary.

Article 19.
1. All people shall be equal before the law and in the court of law.
2. The state shall guarantee the equality of rights and liberties regardless of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property or employment status, residence, attitude to religion, convictions, membership of public associations or any other circumstance. Any restrictions of the rights of citizens on social, racial, national, linguistic or religious grounds shall be forbidden.
3. Man and woman shall have equal rights and liberties and equal opportunities for their pursuit.

Article 20.
1. Everyone shall have the right to life.
2. Capital punishment may, until its abolition, be instituted by the federal law as exceptional punishment for especially grave crimes against life, with the accused having the right to have his case considered in a law court by jury.

Article 21.
1. The dignity of the person shall be protected by the state. No circumstance may be used as a pretext for belittling it.
2. No one may be subjected to torture, violence or any other harsh or humiliating treatment or punishment. No one may be subjected to medical, scientific or other experiments without his or her free consent.

Article 22.
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom and personal inviolability.
2. Arrest, detention and keeping in custody shall be allowed only by an order of a court of law. No person may be detained for more than 48 hours without an order of a court of law.

Article 23.
1. Everyone shall have the right to privacy, to personal and family secrets, and to protection of one's honour and good name.
2. Everyone shall have the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone communications, mail, cables and other communications. Any restriction of this right shall be allowed only under an order of a court of law.

Article 24.
1. It shall be forbidden to gather, store, use and disseminate information on the private life of any person without his/her consent.
2. The bodies of state authority and the bodies of local self-government and the officials thereof shall provide to each citizen access to any documents and materials directly affecting his/her rights and liberties unless otherwise stipulated under the law.

Article 25.
The home shall be inviolable. No one shall have the right to enter the home against the will of persons residing in it except in cases stipulated by the federal law or under an order of a court of law. Article 26.
Everyone shall have the right to determine and state his national identity. No one can be forced to determine and state his national identity. Everyone shall have the right to use his native language, freely choose the language of communication, education, training and creative work.

Article 27.
1. Everyone who is lawfully staying on the territory of the Russian Federation shall have the right to freedom of movement and to choose the place to stay and reside.
2. Everyone shall be free to leave the boundaries of the Russian Federation. The citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to freely return into the Russian Federation.

Article 28.
Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to freedom of conscience, to freedom of religious worship, including the right to profess, individually or jointly with others, any religion, or to profess no religion, to freely choose, possess and disseminate religious or other beliefs, and to act in conformity with them.

Article 29.
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought and speech.
2. Propaganda or campaigning inciting social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife is impermissible. The propaganda of social, racial, national, religious or language superiority is forbidden.
3. No one may be coerced into expressing one's views and convictions or into renouncing them.
4. Everyone shall have the right to seek, get, transfer, produce and disseminate information by any lawful means. The list of information constituting the state secret shall be established by the federal law.
5. The freedom of the mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be prohibited.

Article 30. 1. Everyone shall have the right to association, including the right to create trade unions in order to protect one's interests. The freedom of public associations' activities shall be guaranteed.
2. No one may be coerced into joining any association or into membership thereof.

Article 31.
Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets.

Article 32.
1. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to participate in the administration of the affairs of the state both directly and through their representatives.
2. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to elect and to be elected to bodies of state governance and to organs of local self- government, as well as take part in a referendum.
3. Citizens who have been found by a court of law to be under special disability, and also citizens placed in detention under a court verdict, shall not have the right to elect or to be elected.
4. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have equal access to state service.
5. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to participate in administering justice.

Article 33.
Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to turn personally to, and send individual and collective petitions to state bodies and bodies of local self-government.

Article 34.
1. Everyone shall have the right to freely use his or her abilities and property for entrepreneurial or any other economic activity not prohibited by the law.
2. No economic activity aimed at monopolization or unfair competition shall be allowed.

Article 35.
1. The right of private property shall be protected by law.
2. Everyone shall have the right to have property in his or her ownership, to possess, use and manage it either individually or jointly with other persons.
3. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of his or her property unless on the basis of decision by a court of law. Property can be forcibly alienated for state needs only on condition of a preliminary and equal compensation.
4. The right of inheritance shall be guaranteed.

Article 36.
1. Citizens and their associations shall have the right to have land in their private ownership.
2. The possession, use and management of the land and other natural resources shall be freely exercised by their owners provided this does not cause damage to the environment or infringe upon the rights and interests of other persons.
3. The terms and procedures for the use of land shall be determined on the basis of federal laws. Article 37.
1. Work shall be free. Everyone shall have the right to make free use of his or her abilities for work and to choose a type of activity and occupation.
2. Forced labour shall be prohibited.
3. Everyone shall have the right to work under conditions meeting the requirements of safety and hygiene, to remuneration for work without any discrimination whatsoever and not below the statutory minimum wage, and also the right to security against unemployment.
4. The right to individual and collective labour disputes with the use of means of resolution thereof established by federal law, including the right to strike, shall be recognized.
5. Everyone shall have the right to rest and leisure. A person having a work contract shall be guaranteed the statutory duration of the work time, days off and holidays, and paid annual vacation.

Article 38.
1. Motherhood and childhood, and the family shall be under state protection.
2. Care for children and their upbringing shall be the equal right and duty of the parents.
3. Employable children who have reached 18 years old shall care for their non-employable parents. Article 39.
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed social security in old age, in case of disease, invalidity, loss of breadwinner, to bring up children and in other cases established by law.
2. State pensions and social benefits shall be established by laws.
3. Voluntary social insurance, development of additional forms of social security and charity shall be encouraged.

Article 40.
1. Everyone shall have the right to a home. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of a home.
2. State bodies and organs of local self-government shall encourage home construction and create conditions for the realization of the right to a home.
3. Low-income citizens and other citizens, defined by the law, who are in need of housing shall be housed free of charge or for affordable pay from government, municipal and other housing funds in conformity with the norms stipulated by the law.

Article 41.
1. Everyone shall have the right to health care and medical assistance. Medical assistance shall be made available by state and municipal health care institutions to citizens free of charge, with the money from the relevant budget, insurance payments and other revenues.
2. The Russian Federation shall finance federal health care and health- building programs, take measures to develop state, municipal and private health care systems, encourage activities contributing to the strengthening of the man's health, to the development of physical culture and sport, and to ecological, sanitary and epidemiologic welfare.
3. Concealment by officials of facts and circumstances posing hazards to human life and health shall involve liability in conformity with the federal law.

Article 42.
Everyone shall have the right to a favourable environment, reliable information about its condition and to compensation for the damage caused to his or her health or property by ecological violations.

Article 43.
1. Everyone shall have the right to education.
2. The accessibility and gratuity of pre-school, general secondary and vocational secondary education in public and municipal educational institutions and enterprises shall be guaranteed.
3. Everyone shall have the right to receive, free of charge and on a competitive basis, higher education in a state or municipal educational institution or enterprise.
4. Basic general education shall be mandatory. Parents or persons substituting for them shall make provisions for their children to receive basic general education.
5. The Russian Federation shall institute federal state educational standards and support various forms of education and self-education.

Article 44.
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed freedom of literary, artistic, scientific, intellectual and other types of creative activity and tuition. Intellectual property shall be protected by the law.
2. Everyone shall have the right to participation in cultural life, to the use of institutions of culture, and access to cultural values.
3. Everyone shall care for the preservation of the historic and cultural heritage and safeguard landmarks of history and culture.

Article 45.
1. State protection for human rights and liberties in the Russian Federation shall be guaranteed.
2. Everyone shall have the right to defend his or her rights and liberties by any means not prohibited by the law.

Article 46.
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed protection of his or her rights and liberties in a court of law.
2. The decisions and actions (or inaction) of state organs, organs of local self-government, public associations and officials may be appealed against in a court of law.
3. In conformity with the international treaties of the Russian Federation, everyone shall have the right to turn to interstate organs concerned with the protection of human rights and liberties when all the means of legal protection available within the state have been exhausted.

Article 47.
1. No one may be denied the right to having his or her case reviewed by the court and the judge under whose jurisdiction the given case falls under the law.
2. Anyone charged with a crime has the right to have his or her case reviewed by a court of law with the participation of jurors in cases stipulated by the federal law.

Article 48.
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to qualified legal counsel. Legal counsel shall be provided free of charge in cases stipulated by the law.
2. Every person who has been detained, taken into custody or charged with a crime shall have the right to legal counsel (defense attorney) from the moment of, respectively, detention or indictment.

Article 49.
1. Everyone charged with a crime shall be considered not guilty until his or her guilt has been proven in conformity with the procedures stipulated by the federal law and established by the verdict of a court of law.
2. The defendant shall not be obliged to prove his or her innocence.
3. The benefit of doubt shall be interpreted in favor of the defendant.

Article 50.
1. No may be repeatedly convicted for the same offense.
2. In the administration of justice no evidence obtained in violation of the federal law shall be allowed.
3. Everyone sentenced for a crime shall have the right to have the sentence reviewed by a higher court according to the procedure instituted by the federal law, and also the right to plea for clemency or mitigation punishment.

Article 51.
1. No one shall be obliged to give evidence against himself or herself, for his or her spouse and close relatives, the range of which shall be established by the federal law.
2. The federal law may stipulate other exemptions from the obligation to give evidence.

Article 52.
The rights of persons who have sustained harm from crimes and abuses of power shall be protected by the law. The state shall guarantee the victims access to justice and compensation for damage.

Article 53.
Everyone shall have the right to compensation by the state for the damage caused by unlawful actions (or inaction) of state organs, or their officials.

Article 54.
1. The law instituting or aggravating the liability of a person shall have no retroactive force.
2. No one may be held liable for an action which was not recognized as an offense at the time of its commitment. If liability for an offense has been lifted or mitigated after its perpetration, the new law shall apply.

Article 55.
1. The listing of the basic rights and liberties in the Constitution of the Russian Federation shall not be interpreted as the denial or belittlement of the other commonly recognized human and citizens' rights and liberties.
2. No laws denying or belittling human and civil rights and liberties may be issued in the Russian Federation.
3. Human and civil rights and liberties may be restricted by the federal law only to the extent required for the protection of the fundamentals of the constitutional system, morality, health, rights and lawful interests of other persons, for ensuring the defense of the country and the security of the state.

Article 56.
1. Individual restrictions of rights and liberties with identification of the extent and term of their duration may be instituted in conformity with the federal constitutional law under conditions of the state of emergency in order to ensure the safety of citizens and protection of the constitutional system.
2. A state of emergency throughout the territory of the Russian Federation and in individual areas thereof may be introduced in the circumstances and in conformity with the procedures defined by the federal constitutional law.
3. The rights and liberties stipulated by Articles 20, 21, 23 (part 1), 24, 28, 34 (part 1), 40 (part 1), 46-54 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation shall not be subject to restriction.

Article 57.
Everyone shall pay lawful taxes and fees. Laws introducing new taxes or worsening the situation of tax payers shall not have retroactive force.

Article 58.
Everyone shall be obliged to preserve nature and the environment, and care for natural wealth.

Article 59.
1. Defense of the homeland shall be a duty and obligation of the citizen of the Russian Federation.
2. The citizen of the Russian Federation shall do military service inconformity with the federal law.
3. The citizen of the Russian Federation whose convictions and faith are at odds with military service, and also in other cases stipulated by the federal law shall have the right to the substitution of an alternative civil service for military service.

Article 60.
The citizen of the Russian Federation shall be recognized to be of legal age and may independently exercise his rights and duties in full upon reaching the age of 18.

Article 61.
1. The citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of Russia or extradited to another state.
2. The Russian Federation shall guarantee its citizens defense and patronage beyond its boundaries.

Article 62.
1. The citizen of the Russian Federation may have the citizenship of a foreign state (dual citizenship) in conformity with the federal law or international treaty of the Russian Federation.
2. Possession of the citizenship of a foreign state by the citizen of the Russian Federation shall not belittle his or her ranks and liberties or exempt him or her from the duties stemming from Russian citizenship unless otherwise stipulated by the federal law or international treaty of the Russian Federation.
3. Foreign citizens and stateless persons shall enjoy in the Russian Federation the rights of its citizens and bear their duties with the exception of cases stipulated by the federal law or international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Article 63.
1. The Russian Federation shall grant political asylum to foreign citizens and stateless citizens in conformity with the commonly recognized norms of the international law. 2. The extradition of persons persecuted for their political views or any actions (or inaction), which are not qualified as criminal by the law of the Russian Federation, to other states shall not be allowed in the Russian Federation. The extradition of persons charged with crimes and also the hand-over of convicts for serving time in other countries shall be effected on the basis of the federal law or international treaty of the Russian Federation.

Article 64.
The provisions of these articles form the basis of personal rights in the Russian Federation and may not be changed other than by the means set forth in this constitution.

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