The FSB has developed an instruction according to which the security forces will be able to search houses, apartments and cars without a court order. The document was published on the portal of draft regulatory legal acts. Attention was drawn to him by the “Parliamentary newspaper”.
The instructions say that conducting a survey that limits the constitutional right of citizens to the inviolability of their homes, without a court decision, is allowed “in cases that do not tolerate delay and may lead to the commission of a grave or especially grave crime.”
Also, searches can be carried out if there is information about a threat to the state, military, economic, information or environmental security of Russia. In such cases, the security forces will need a decision from one of the heads of the security agency. At the same time, the FSB must notify the court of the searches within 24 hours, the document specifies.
To conduct “other surveys”, the decision of one of the leaders of the FSB, for example, the director of the department or his first deputy, is necessary. In cases “that brook no delay,” FSB officers can conduct searches without a warrant, but they must inform the authorized head about this, the document says.
In other cases, searches can be carried out only on the basis of a court decision and if there is information about the signs of a crime, about the persons who could have committed them, and about events that threaten the security of the Russian Federation.
The instruction also gives the law enforcers the right to seize suspicious documents, objects and materials. This information must be entered into the protocol. At the same time, an object found in an apartment or house, which was withdrawn from civil circulation or is in possession of persons without special permission, “is withdrawn in any case.”