to a category of legal instruments which were to be published. The Government thus insisted that Decree No. 055 had been relied on in the applicant's case only in so far as it had been necessary to assess the degree of importance and secrecy of the information collected by the applicant rather than for determining whether that information had constituted a State secret, this latter question having been decided on the basis of the State Secrets Act and Presidential Decree No. 1203.
58. The Government further argued that the applicant's case was distinguishable from the Nikitin case referred to by the applicant. They pointed out that in the latter case, the offences imputed to Mr Nikitin had been committed before 5 October 1995, that is, before Presidential Decree No. 1203 had been enacted, whereas in the present case the actions imputed to the applicant had been halted on 20 November 1997, when the said decree was already in force. The Government further contended that the applicant's reference to the case of Moiseyev was also incorrect, given that the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia on which the applicant relied had been quashed and Mr Moiseyev had been convicted of espionage in a new set of court proceedings. The Government pointed out that legal arguments concerning the allegedly retrospective application of the State Secrets Act deployed by the appellate court in its final decision in the case of Moiseyev had been similar to those of the appellate court in its decision of 25 June 2002 in the applicant's case, and therefore there had been no conflict on that issue in the practice of the domestic courts.
59. They also pointed out that the applicant could not but have realised that the information which he had recorded in his written notes had been classified, since it had been disclosed among a limited group of persons at the meeting of 11 September 1997 on condition that it would be kept secret. The Government concluded that the provisions of Article 7 of the Convention had not been infringed in the applicant's case.
60. The Government further disputed as unsubstantiated the applicant's argument that he had been a victim of political persecution because of his journalistic activities and critical articles and pointed out that his conviction had been based on various pieces of evidence relied on by the Pacific Fleet Military Court in its judgment of 25 December 2001. The Government argued that the interference with the applicant's freedom of expression had been justified under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. They submitted that, in accordance with the domestic legislation on the media, divulging information containing State secrets was prohibited and that information must be received and imparted lawfully. They further pointed out that at the material time the applicant had been a serving military officer and by virtue of the relevant legal provisions he had been entitled to have access to any classified information only in so far as this had been rendered necessary by his professional duties and only to write down classified information on the source material that had been registered by a competent authority. Moreover, he had been under an obligation to keep secret any classified information he had received and prevent any leaks of such information. It had also been prohibited to take secret materials outside the premises of the headquarters or to keep them in an inappropriate place. They insisted that, by virtue of his status of a serviceman, the applicant had been fully aware of all those limitations and could have clearly foreseen the negative consequences of a breach of the relevant regulations.
61. The Government conceded that the applicant had indeed been convicted not for the transfer of the imputed information to Mr T.O., but rather for his intention to transfer it. In this connection, however, they pointed out that the elements of
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