MOSCOW, May 21 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Justice Ministry has developed a bill obliging unincorporated non-governmental associations to provide the Ministry with updated information as its notification on the launch of the development of amendments to the Federal Law “Concerning Social Associations” published on a website offering for public discussion draft legislation reads.

The bill has been drafted in order to obtain and systemize up-to-date information on unincorporated non-governmental associations needed to protect the rights of citizens and legal persons and make their activities transparent, the document reads.

The Ministry reminds that at present the law on social associations non-governmental organizations have an option to obtain the rights pertaining to legal persons via registration, or operate without registration waiving these rights. At the same time, the law prescribes that the activities of such unincorporated associations should be made public and free access should be granted to their constituent documents and policy papers.

Actual and systemized data on unincorporated social associations, the Ministry notes, are needed to comply with the provisions of the law and to draft statements prohibiting the activities of such associations; these factors were behind the Ministry’s drive to develop the bill.