Press Release, 9.09.2023

Photo: Lev Shlosberg  / Photo from Lev Shlosberg’s personal archive

The Pskov City Court rejected Lev Shlosberg, a member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party, in satisfying his claims against the Ministry of Justice to declare illegal the order of June 16, 2023, to include the politician in the register of “foreign agents”.

Here is Lev Shlosberg’s commentary:

The trial in the first instance began on 6 July and ended today, 8 September, after four court hearings. In total, we spent 14 hours in the hearings. At each meeting, we demanded that the Ministry of Justice provide evidence of each of the significant facts provided for by the law “on foreign influence”.

The Ministry of Justice refused to provide the court with my “account file”, citing the fact that it itself determines what can and should be provided to the court. The Ministry of Justice refused to disclose the opening date of this case. The Ministry of Justice refused to provide correspondence with other departments in the process of preparing its order, stating that these documents are not relevant to the case, and some of the documents are classified.

The materials submitted by the Ministry of Justice to the court, for the most part, did not have the characteristics of a document; they did not indicate the author or date of issuing them, they were not executed on forms, and were not signed. The attachments to the objections of the Ministry of Justice did not correspond to the text of the objections.

The main body of the documents from the Ministry of Justice consisted of almost 20 decisions of other courts, mainly Moscow courts, adopted on administrative claims of other citizens challenging decisions to include them in the register of “foreign agents”.

A representative of the Ministry of Justice, who participated in the hearings of the Pskov City Court through videoconferencing from two district courts of Moscow, confirmed the written position of the ministry that nine out of ten sources of foreign influence provided for by law have not been identified, and applied the 10th type of source – “influence of other persons “, by which the Ministry of Justice means Russian citizens, whom the Ministry of Justice itself included in the register of “foreign agents”. Moreover, the court failed to present any evidence of either the content, form, or result of such influence in none of the episodes of such influence.

We have received all the confirmation that the only basis for including me in the register of “foreign agents” is my legitimate political activity. Thus, the response to precisely this activity was the violation of my constitutional rights.

A reasoned court decision will issued on 22 September and will be appealed by me and my representatives in the Pskov Regional Court.