The Novgorod Regional Duma has extended restrictions on serving as a lawmaker's aide to relatives of people designated by Russian authorities as “foreign agents” and to relatives of people officially considered affiliated with them.
The amendments to the rules governing lawmakers' aides were adopted on October 8 and took effect immediately.
Previously, close family ties to the lawmaker were among the grounds preventing a person from serving as an aide. The rules now also cover close family relationships or relationships by marriage with a person designated as a “foreign agent” or someone officially considered affiliated with a “foreign agent.”
The list includes parents, spouses, children, brothers and sisters, as well as a spouse's children and children's spouses.
A separate provision prohibits people designated as “foreign agents” themselves, as well as people considered affiliated with them, from working as lawmakers' aides.
On October 15, Viktor Shalyakin, head of the Yabloko faction in the regional parliament, said he had asked the Novgorod regional prosecutor to review the resolution for compliance with the Russian Constitution and federal law and to seek its repeal.
Federal law already imposes numerous restrictions on people included in the Justice Ministry's register of “foreign agents.” The Novgorod measure additionally extends a restriction on holding the position of regional lawmaker's aide to their close relatives.