38 ORLOVSKAYA ISKRA v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 119. At this juncture the Court finds it necessary to deal with the Government’s submission before the Court that may be understood as suggesting that the applicant organisation was an affiliated partisan mass media outlet that published a periodical whose stance was invariably prejudiced against the United Russia Party, and that the impugned articles were “campaigning material” commissioned by Mr Stroyev’s opponents, meaning the Communist Party or its regional branch. 120. While taking note of the applicant’s Articles of incorporation (see paragraph 6 above), the Court is not satisfied that there is enough to substantiate that the editorial decisions were in fact taken by the Communist Party or its local branch (compare Saliyev v. Russia, no. 35016/03, §§ 52-53 and 62-70, 21 October 2010). It has not been substantiated that the impugned publications were (paid-for) political advertisements, rather than “ordinary” journalistic work. There is no proof that any related arguments were raised and examined in the domestic proceedings, in particular in relation to ascertaining the presence of a campaign aim or other essential elements of the offence. It follows from the available material that the applicant organisation clearly specified on the front page of the periodical its formal affiliation to a political party (the Communist Party) and also clearly declared its readiness to publish material on the part of any political party, electoral bloc or candidate in a specific election. While it is true that it declared that the fees it announced would not “apply to the newspaper’s founder”, as a matter of fact, the same fee was charged to the Communist Party. Nothing in the domestic proceedings or before the Court discloses that the impugned articles were among those mentioned in the contract between the application organisation and the local branch of the Communist Party. 121. The Court has no reason to consider that any candidates or political parties were at the origin of the impugned articles (see, by comparison, Andrushko, cited above, § 45, where a candidate published a leaflet concerning another candidate). Therefore, the Court concludes that the publication of the impugned articles by the applicant organisation constituted a fully-fledged exercise of its own freedom of expression, namely the choice to publish the articles, thus imparting information to the readers and potential voters (see Długołęcki v. Poland, no. 23806/03, § 42, 24 February 2009). 122. Bearing in mind the approach outlined in Animal Defenders International, cited above, §§ 106-11, the Court will consider whether the above regulatory framework and the effects it entailed in the present case were in conformity with the Convention (see also Gorzelik and Others, cited above, § 67). 123. The Court has had the benefit of reading the Russian Constitutional Court rulings of 30 October 2003 and 16 June 2006, its decision of 25 December 2008 on the applicant organisation’s application, and a