crets Act as in force at the relevant time only listed information classifiable - and not classified - as secret, and could not therefore be said to have clearly provided a list of such information. On the other hand, during the relevant period such a list was defined by Presidential Decree No. 1203 of 30 October 1995. The domestic courts relied on those two legal instruments as the basis for the applicant's conviction. The question to be decided in the present case is therefore whether, in view of the relevant requirements of the Russian Constitution, a sufficient legal basis for the alleged interference with the applicant's rights under Article 10 of the Convention can be established in a situation where a federal statute's reference to a list of information that "may be" classified as State secret was detailed in a presidential decree - a legal instrument of a lower rank than a statute.
72. The respondent Government advanced an argument to the effect that the Constitutional Court of Russia ("the Constitutional Court") in its decision of 20 December 1995 had held that the requirements of Article 29 § 4 of the Russian Constitution had been fulfilled by the State Secrets Act of 21 July 1993. In the circumstances of the present case, the Court does not consider it necessary to address the question of whether during the period under examination the State Secrets Act, taken alone, could have constituted a sufficient legal basis for the applicant's conviction, as in any event it was not applied in his case alone, but in conjunction with the Presidential Decree of 30 November 1995.
73. The Court further reiterates that, according to its settled case-law, the concept of "law" must be understood in its "substantive" sense, not its "formal" one. It therefore includes everything that goes to make up the written law, including enactments of lower rank than statutes and the court decisions interpreting them (see Association Ekin v. France, No. 39288/98, § 46, ECHR 2001-VIII). In the present case, the Court notes that the Russian Constitution established a principle that a list of classified information should be defined by a federal statute and that amendments were subsequently made to the State Secrets Act so as to bring it into conformity with the relevant constitutional requirement. It is clear that in the period between 12 December 1993, the date on which the Russian Constitution entered into force, and 9 October 1997, the date on which the amendments to the State Secrets Act became operative, there was a pressing need for a legal instrument which would have provided the competent authorities with a legal basis "for the performance of their duty to protect the security of the State, community and individuals" (see paragraph 41 above). The Court is inclined to consider that the Russian authorities were justified in responding to that need through the enactment of a presidential decree - the procedure for the adoption of such a legal instrument being less complicated and more speedy than that of a federal statute - given in particular their margin of appreciation in regulating the protection of State secrecy (see Stoll v. Switzerland [GC], No. 69698/01, § 107, ECHR 2007-...). The adopted decree clearly listed categories of information classified as secret and was accessible to the public so that any individual, including the applicant, could coordinate their conduct accordingly.
74. The Court further notes that in support of his argument that the State Secrets Act in its original version and Presidential Decree No. 1203 of 30 November 1995 could not be regarded as a proper legal basis for his conviction, the applicant referred to two decisions by the Supreme Court of Russia in two other criminal cases concerning disclosure of State secrets, namely those of Nikitin and Moiseyev, in which the Supreme Court had consistently stated that the list of information constituting State secrets sho
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