ence by public authority...
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
A. Submissions by the parties
1. The applicant
49. In so far as his complaints under Article 7 of the Convention were concerned, the applicant insisted that he had been convicted on the basis of retrospective application of the State Secrets Act. He argued, in particular, that between 11 September 1997, the date on which he had collected the information in question, and 9 October 1997, the date on which the amendment to the State Secrets Act incorporating the list of information classified as secret had become operative, there had been no such list defined in a federal statute, and therefore there had been no legal basis for his conviction for the alleged offence for that period. The applicant contended that Presidential Decree No. 1203 of 30 November 1995, approving the list of information classified as State secrets, could not be regarded as a proper legal basis for his conviction, given that Article 29 § 4 of the Constitution clearly stated that "a list of information constituting State secrets shall be defined by a federal statute". He also insisted that in the absence of such a list he had been unable to foresee that his actions had been criminally liable.
50. In that respect, the applicant relied on the case-law of the Russian courts in the cases of Nikitin v. Russia (No. 50178/99, ECHR 2004-VIII) and Moiseyev v. Russia (No. 62936/00, 9 October 2008). In particular, he pointed out that the Supreme Court of Russia in its decision of 17 April 2000, given in the case of Nikitin, and in its decision of 25 July 2000, given in the case of Moiseyev, had consistently stated that the list of information constituting State secrets should be defined in a federal statute, and that such a list had first been established in the federal law of 6 October 1997 introducing changes and amendments to the State Secrets Act of the Russian Federation.
51. The applicant further contended that the domestic courts had relied on unpublished Decree No. 055 of the Ministry of Defence, which, in his opinion, had lead to an extensive interpretation and overly broad application of the State Secrets Act. Whilst he accepted that the trial court had not referred to Decree No. 055 directly, he considered that the court had relied on it indirectly by using the expert report of 14 September 2001. According to the applicant, the report in question had established the classified nature of his handwritten notes on the basis of the above-mentioned unpublished decree. In his view, this was confirmed by the formula "the activities of radio electronic warfare units during the exercises" used by the trial court in his conviction and taken word for word from Decree No. 055, rather than from section 5 of the State Secrets Act. In the applicant's submission, the formula employed in the Act was narrower and covered only one type of the activities of radio electronic warfare units, namely information concerning "the means and methods of protection of classified data". The applicant also pointed out that the use of Decree No. 055 in his case had been acknowledged by the appellate court, which had stated in its decision of 25 June 2002 that the expert report of 14 September 2001 had been based on the State Secrets Act, Presidential Decree No. 1203 and Ministerial Decree No.
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