Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has endorsed fines of up to 300,000 ($3,800) for citizens, who don’t have the coronavirus, in case they violate quarantine rules.
These fines are outlined in the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses approved by the State Duma today.
Under the amendments, in case citizens are caught breaking the quarantine rules, they face a fine of between 15,000 rubles ($191) and 40,000 rubles ($510). Officials will be fined between 50,000 rubles ($638) and 150,000 rubles ($1,914). Legal entities will face penalties of between 200,000 rubles ($2,550) and 500,000 rubles ($6,375) or will be ordered to halt their activity for up to 30 days.
Should these breaches result in harming human health or causing death, but there is no evidence of a crime, the fines will be between 150,000 rubles ($1,900) and 300,000 rubles ($3,800) for individuals. Officials will be fined between 300,000 rubles and 500,000 rubles ($6,370), while legal entities face penalties of between 500,000 rubles and 1 mln rubles ($12,740) or a suspension of activity for up to 90 days.
The amendments to Russia’s Criminal Code were proposed by Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house State Duma, and another senior lawmaker of the governing United Russia party, Pavel Krasheninnikov.
On March 29, Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin and Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyev issued decrees extending the high coronavirus alert regime. Thus, self-isolation requirements were extended to all people regardless of their age. People are required to stay at home and can go outside only for emergency medical assistance, to go to work, to visit a nearest food store, to dispose garbage and to walk a dog within 100 meters from the house.
