Press Release, 8.04.2026

Photo by Andrei Zhdanov, Kommersant

The Constitutional Court of Russia has refused to consider a complaint lodged by the St.Petersburg regional branch of Yabloko against a statutory provision that prevents the party from appealing an unlawful decision of an electoral commission.

At the 2024 municipal elections in the Admiralteysky District municipality of St.Petersburg, Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC) No. 1 was so zealous in its “clearance” of candidates who were not progovernment that only five registered candidates remained for five seats in one constituency. The law requires that elections be postponed in such a situation, with an additional nomination round — in which Yabloko would also have been entitled to participate. However, as this did not suit the authorities’ plans, TEC No. 1 unilaterally reversed its own earlier decision refusing to register one of the candidates (from the LDPR party) and registered him, bringing the total to six candidates and allowing the elections to proceed. Five “approved” candidates duly received their mandates; the LDPR candidate was a “technical” one and raised no objection.

The TEC’s decision was entirely unlawful: an electoral commission has no authority to reverse its own refusal to register a candidate on its own initiative, only a court may do so, and only upon a candidate’s complaint. The TEC did precisely what it was expressly prohibited from doing, yet every body that could have intervened — the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the St.Petersburg Electoral Commission, and the Central Electoral Commission — turned a blind eye, since the violation had been committed in favour of pro-government candidates.

The St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko brought proceedings in court, seeking a declaration that TEC No. 1’s decision to reinstate the “technical” candidate was unlawful.

The courts, however, refused to accept Yabloko’s application on the grounds that the Code of Administrative Procedure permits decisions of TECs concerning candidates to be challenged only by candidates (or electoral associations) registered in the same constituency. The courts disregarded the fact that the TEC’s decision had infringed Yabloko’s right to participate in the additional nomination round.

The St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko then applied to the Constitutional Court (the complaint was prepared by the branch’s Deputy Chairman, lawyer Alexander Kobrinsky), requesting an examination of the constitutionality of the Code of Administrative Procedure provision that restricts the range of persons entitled to challenge electoral commission decisions on candidate registration where such registration violates rights to an additional nomination round.

The Constitutional Court, however, resorted to a sleight of hand, issuing a ruling that addressed an entirely different question from the one it had been asked.

It acted as though the party were raising only the question of whether the LDPR candidate had been lawfully registered, and declined to examine the case, whereas what it had actually been asked to do was to review the constitutionality of the ban on parties challenging electoral commission decisions that violate their rights.

The result is that a flagrant breach of the law was overlooked at every level — from the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Constitutional Court — demonstrating once again that none of these institutions has any intention of ensuring electoral integrity.