MOSCOW, February 6 - RAPSI. The Justice Ministry has proposed toughening legislation governing non-profit organizations and granting the authorities more power to inspect their business activities, Vladimir Titov, the head of its Non-Profit Organization Department, told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI).

The ministry is responsible for monitoring non-profit organizations' overall activities, including their financial and business operations. However, its control over their activities and spending has been loosened in recent years, Titov said.

For example, today the ministry only carries out unscheduled inspections of non-profit organizations upon the election committee's request to check information that an organization made a donation to an electoral fund of a political party.

The law also allows the ministry to inspect non-profit organizations only once every three years. At the same time, the first inspection can only be carried out three years after the organization has been registered.

Titov stressed that non-profit organizations that do not have foreign citizens among their founders and members and have not been financed by foreign capital are legally exempted from such inspections.