Press Release, 14.01.2016

Today the Pskov Regional Court has rejected the appeal of Lev Shlosberg, Chair of the Pskov region branch of YABLOKO and member of the Political Committee of the party, on termination of his regional MP proxies by the Legislative Assembly of the Pskov Region and has upheld the decision of the Pskov City Court of 21 October, 2015. Shlosberg will file a cassational appeal to the Supreme Court after he receives the decision of the court.

“The same was in the Court of the first instance, the Court did not pay attention at the legal substance of the argument and did not accept our arguments. Moreover, it was clear that the judges did not understand the essence of the case. We were taking about our basic stance but it seems that the judges did not understand us. Unfortunately, now such things often happen within our court system”, Lev Shlosberg said.

On September 24, the Pskov Regional Assembly illegally deprived Lev Shlosberg, leader of the Pskov branch of YABLOKO, of his mandate. Shlosberg was accused of representation in court of the interests of the organisation Center of Social Engineering “Revival”, of which he was the founder. However, neither the law, no the court prohibited then regional MP Shlosberg to represent the interests of the NGO in court. The federal and the regional law do not stipulate for termination of the powers of a deputy for participation in a trial, but the Pskov Regional Assembly deprived Shlosberg of his mandate on these grounds.

Lev Shlosberg is a renowned Russian journalist who was the first to disclose the Russian losses in Ukraine and was severely beaten right after the publication. He is also Chair of the Pskov branch of YABLOKO, which has been demonstrating very good results in elections of all levels in the region. In the recent elections of 13 September YABLOKO obtained 17 mandates in two districts of the region.