SAVVA TERENTYEV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 17 need be, with appropriate legal advice – that this could render him criminally liable under the above-mentioned provision of the Criminal Code (ibid., § 137). The Court recognises that in the area under consideration it may be difficult to frame laws with absolute precision and that a certain degree of flexibility may be called for to enable the Russian courts to assess whether a particular action can be considered as capable of stirring up hatred and enmity on the grounds listed in that Article (see Dmitriyevskiy v. Russia, no. 42168/06, § 80, 3 October 2017, and the authorities cited therein). It has consistently held that in any system of law, including criminal law, however clearly drafted a legal provision may be, there will inevitably be a need for interpretation by the courts, whose judicial function is precisely to elucidate obscure points and dispel any doubts which may remain regarding the interpretation of legislation (see, for instance, Öztürk, cited above, § 55, and, mutatis mutandis, Jorgic v. Germany, no. 74613/01, § 101, ECHR 2007-III). 57. In this connection, the Court observes that the Government did not adduce or refer to any practice of the national courts which would, at the time when the applicant was tried and convicted, have interpreted the notions referred to in Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code to define their meaning and scope with a view to giving an indication as to which individuals or groups of individuals it had protected and what “actions” could have resulted in criminal liability under that provision. The applicant, in turn, pointed to a lack of relevant practice of the Russian courts (see paragraph 42 above). Indeed, it was not before 2010-11, several years after the applicant had been convicted at final instance, that the highest courts in Russia addressed the problem with the interpretation of Article 282 of the Criminal Code and provided at least some guidance in that connection for the national courts (see paragraphs 31-32 above). At the same time, the Court notes that the domestic courts’ interpretation of Article 282 in the present case, to regard the police as a “social group” which could benefit from the protection of the provision, does not conflict with the natural meaning of the words. 58. Against this background, it appears that in the applicant’s criminal case the domestic courts were faced with a legal issue which had not yet been clarified through judicial interpretation. The Court recognises that they cannot be blamed for that state of affairs, and that there will always be an element of uncertainty about the meaning of a new legal provision until it is interpreted and applied by the domestic courts (see Dmitriyevskiy, cited above, § 82). As to the criteria applied by the courts in the applicant’s case, this question relates rather to the relevance and sufficiency of the grounds given by them to justify his conviction, and should be addressed in the assessment of whether the interference with the applicant’s rights secured by Article 10 of the Convention was necessary in a democratic society.