The State Duma (parliament) adopted in second reading a bill on amendments of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation.
The document assumes the establishment of administrative responsibility for the refusal to provide services, work and access to goods for representatives of vulnerable categories of the population (disabled, elderly people) on equal terms with other citizens. As reported earlier, the bill is providing liability for the denial of access to goods and services for people with disabilities, the elderly and other consumers with health restrictions, was proposed to supplement an article of the Code of Administrative Offences (violation of the rights of consumers) for actions related to the consumer’s denial of access to goods (work, services) for reasons due to poor health or age.
According to the Russian organization for the protection of consumers its territorial bodies annually receive more than 20 thousand appeals from representatives of socially vulnerable (due to the presence of disability, age) groups for violation of their consumer rights. “In certain constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the proportion of complaints from citizens of socially vulnerable categories with complaints of violations in the consumer sector in the total number of complaints for such violations exceeds 20 percent,” the explanatory note to the document says. Initially, when developing the bill, fines for officials ranged from 50 to 100 thousand rubles, for legal entities – from 300 to 500 thousand rubles. Amendments to the second reading increased fines. For officials, the fine will be from 50 to 100 thousand rubles, for legal entities – from 300 to 500 thousand rubles( ( 4500-6000 USD) In case of refusal to several consumers at the same time or a repeated refusal, administrative responsibility will arise for the refusal to each of them and for each case of refusal separately.
