Press Release 6.02.2024

Photo: Lev Shlosberg / Photo by the Pskov regional branch of Yabloko

On 5 February, the Pskov City Court fined Lev Shlosberg, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, three times for distributing materials without a “foreign agency” tag ( Article 19.34, Part 4, of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) and mentioning without a special reference an organisation recognised by the state as extremist (Article 13.15, Part 2, of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). The three fines totaled 62,000 roubles. Lev Shlosberg says that he is going to appeal these fines.

Lev Shlosberg comments:

Yesterday’s “Judgment Monday” in the Pskov City Court with my humane participation caused some worries and public unrest, to which I will respond with a commentary. Not to reassure anyone, but to clarify some details.

The Pskov City Court did not accumulate all the cases so that to conduct hearings in one day in order to fire three “bullets” at once. Making decisions on one day was only caused by the fact that my defender Vitaly Isakov, who lives in St. Petersburg, could work in Pskov on that very day only. Therefore, although all three court decisions have nothing to do with justice, or even law, there is no need to accuse the court of deliberately completing three cases at the same time. This is nothing more than a coincidence caused by scheduling.

Judge Inna Bondarenko has held eight court hearings, starting from 30 October, 2023, Judge Georgy Artamonov – six, starting from 18 December, Judge Marina Novikova – three, starting from 19 December. Vitaly Isakov and I personally participated in all the hearings. The judges did not interfere with us collecting and attaching evidence to the case; they called and questioned witnesses and specialists, heard and attached written positions to the case. These are not Moscow courts, where a person is not allowed to speak and petitions are rejected without reading them. The remnants of Pskov civil traditions have been preserved in the form of such almost useless, but still noticeable atavisms.

Although in cases of administrative offenses the person in respect of whom the protocol was drawn up does not have to prove his innocence, but on the contrary, the drafter of the protocol is obliged to present to the court all the evidence of the guilt of the person involved, we spent several months collecting and presenting to the court evidence of my innocence. And at the moment when this evidence became exhaustive, the judges decided to put an end to the cases. But not the ones we insisted on. All the three points fell on 5 February, causing different commotion in different audiences – from panic to gloating delight.

I realise that all such decisions are political, targeted and are not made by the judges themselves, but only with their participation. With a legal approach to the cases, all three protocols (two from Roskomnadzor and one from the police) should have been returned by the court to the compilers due to fatal deficiencies. But the courts can no longer make such decisions, so the judges began, to the best of their ability, to make up for the shortcomings of the compiled protocols at the hearings (which is procedurally unacceptable) and help the compilers find evidence. We used these actions to gather evidence of my innocence and succeeded in the process, showing that there was no wrongdoing, but did not obtain a legitimate judicial result.

It would be reasonable in the place of the courts not to publicly boast of such achievements, but the insolent united press service of the Pskov courts of general jurisdiction could not resist the temptation and, out of great intelligence, put a mocking headline in the report on the results of the day, “Where There are Two, There Are Three,” letting out the customised nature of all the three cases.

Court decisions have not yet been written. The basis for the decisions is not known and, most likely, not invented. It will be very difficult to write them. But they will write them, send them by mail, we will receive them and appeal.

We have no illusions about what Russian justice is like now. But as long as there is an opportunity to record the flow of deprivation of civil rights and lawlessness, we will do this, because all these cases will be important evidence in future trials.

What could happen next? Anything. This is how life is in our country now. But “all this was forever, until it was over” (Alexei Yurchak).

I thank my defenders Vitaly Isakov and Vladimir Danilov for their professional work.

I thank all my friends, whether I know them personally or not, for the flow of empathy and support. Let’s not stop.