The Leningrad Regional Court motivated the decision to ban the "Holy Scriptures" by the absence of the word "Bible" in the title

The reasoning part of the appellate ruling of December 20, 2017 banning the translation of the Bible under the publishing title "Holy Scripture - New World Translation" was provided by the Leningrad Regional Court three weeks later. The court had to find a way to overcome the direct indication of the law "On Countering Extremist Activity": "The Bible, Koran, Tanakh and Ganjur, their content and quotations from them cannot be recognized as extremist materials." The court found an argument, and this argument turned out to be innovative, not heard during the trial.

The court determined: "The arguments that a gray-bound book in Russian language with the title "Holy Scripture - New World Translation" is a Bible are rejected because the book does not contain the corresponding title "Bible", which is provided for by the system of standards for information, librarianship and publishing (GOST 7.80-2000), is actually a translation into Russian, it is based on the translation into English of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek texts with significant changes, the existence of which is acknowledged by the authors of the New World Translation themselves." There is no other reasoning in the court's ruling.

During the trial , GOST 7.80-2000 was not mentioned either by the transport prosecutor, who sought to ban the Bible, or by representatives of the publishing house. This standard, as follows from paragraph 1, regulates the work of libraries and other organizations engaged in bibliographic activities. It instructs librarians "to use a unified, best-known title when compiling bibliographic records for editions of anonymous classical works published under different titles, editions of texts of scriptures, liturgical books published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and having various complex titles. For example, if the publication contains the full text of the Bible, it, according to this GOST, should be written as the "Bible"; if the edition contains only the Old Testament, then it should be written as "The Bible. V. Z.", and if the publication is called the Apocalypse, then it should be written as follows: "The Bible. N. Z. Apocalypse". At the same time, the need for this GOST stems precisely from the fact that the scriptures were published in Russian language under different titles, for example, "Book of Praises", "Tegilim", "Psalms of David", "Psalter".

Thus, the court applied this GOST 7.80-2000 erroneously, which led to a significant violation of the norms of substantive law, namely, to the non-application of the law to be applied (the provision prohibiting the recognition of religious texts, including the Bible, as extremist materials). According to the article of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, this is the basis for the cancellation of the court decision.

The proposition that "the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" is not the Bible because "the book . . . In fact, it is a translation into Russian, it is based on the translation into English of Hebrew and ancient Greek texts with significant changes", is devoid of legal force, contradicts facts and common sense. Since the Bible was not written in Russian language, for most it is always a translation. In addition, many editions of the Bible, both in large and small languages, were the result of a two-stage translation, that is, a translation made from a translation. For example, the translation of the Old Testament part of the Church Slavonic Bible, which is still officially used in Orthodox worship, was made from a translation known as the Septuagint. The Synodal translation of the Bible, officially approved in Orthodoxy for home reading, also follows this tradition in many places.

The unjustified decision of such a high court to ban the Bible itself clearly demonstrates the depravity of the mechanisms for recognizing materials as "extremist". Since 2009, Jehovah's Witnesses have been confronted with the blatantly groundless inclusion of their worship materials on the ban list. Later, these court decisions became the reason for accusations of believers of "extremist activity", which eventually turned into a total ban, confiscation of property, fines, criminal cases and even imprisonment of individual believers.