6 ORLOVSKAYA ISKRA v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 18. On unspecified dates the applicant organisation received a copy of this decision and lodged a supervisory-review application with the President of the Orel Regional Court. The scope of that application remains unclear. 19. Without holding a hearing, on 29 January 2008 the acting president of the court issued a decision dismissing the application. The reasoning of the decision of the acting president was identical to that of the lower courts. On an unspecified date the applicant organisation received a copy of the acting president’s decision. 20. The applicant organisation then lodged a supervisory-review application with the President of the Supreme Court of Russia. The scope of this application remains unclear. On 19 June 2008 the Vice-President dismissed it. On an unspecified date the applicant organisation received a copy of this decision. B. Constitutional complaint 21. On an unspecified date the applicant organisation introduced an individual application before the Constitutional Court of Russia, arguing that the impugned provisions of the Electoral Rights Act and the State Duma Deputies Election Act ran counter to freedom of the press. The Acts de facto regarded any critical material published during a pre-election period as “campaigning”, and imposed additional requirements on such publications. 22. By a letter of 23 October 2008 the Registry of the Constitutional Court informed the applicant organisation that its application was not allowed because, in substance, it was merely challenging the factual and legal findings made by the courts in the administrative offence case. 23. On an unspecified date the applicant organisation resubmitted its application to the Constitutional Court. On 25 December 2008 a panel of judges of the Constitutional Court issued a decision (определение) refusing examination of the application. It held as follows: “In its ruling of 30 October 2003 the Constitutional Court made the following statement of principle concerning a distinction between information for voters and pre-election campaigning. To protect the right to free elections, freedom of expression on the part of the mass media may be restricted, provided that the balance of constitutional values has been respected ... [The Electoral Rights Act] distinguishes between information for voters appearing in the mass media and pre-election campaigning by them. Both information and campaigning can influence voters to make certain choices, thus the obvious and only criterion to distinguish between them would be the existence of a particular aim, namely to incline voters to support or oppose a certain candidate ... Without such an aim in mind there would be no dividing line between information and campaigning, to the effect that all information would amount to campaigning. This would go against the constitutional guarantees of freedom of information and freedom of expression ...