ST. PETERSBURG, May 31 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – The Constitutional Court of Russia has found powers granted to the operator of “Platon” Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system unconstitutional and has ordered to limit them, RAPSI reported from the courtroom on Tuesday.

According to official description of the “Platon” system, it “was introduced to facilitate and process the collection of toll charges offsetting the damage caused to Russian Federal Highways by vehicles exceeding 12 tons of gross vehicle weight”. All owners of such vehicles have to register in the system, install specialized equipment or fill in special route card. Failure to observe these rules shall entail administrative liability. All funds are transferred by the system operator to the federal budget, and go into the Federal road fund.

Several lawmakers found this system unjust and asked the Constitutional Court to make its judgement. They believe that such system is, in fact, a tax and should be regulated by the federal legislation instead of government ordinance.

The Constitutional Court has ruled that government may introduce additional tolls for those who exploit the federal roads more than others. The court ruled that such system is not a tax.

However, the Court has also ruled that excessive encumbrance of entrepreneurs brought by this system is unacceptable, noting that currently tolls collected by this system constitute the main financial costs for businessmen involved in overland cargo delivery.

The Court ruled that raising tolls over the limit set by the governmental ordinance is unacceptable.