Press Release, 8.12.2014

After the address of the YABLOKO party, Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Crimea recognised that the law on nationalization in the Crimea violated the federal law, and sent to the State Council of the Republic of Crimea a corresponding motion.

This is indicated in the letter forwarded to Sergei Mitrokhin and signed by A.Myalin, head of the department for supervising for the enforcement of the federal legislation.

“The Prosecutor’s Office believes that the fact that the law on nationalization was not coordinated with the bodies of the Russian Government represents a violation. In addition, such a law, in their opinion, can only operate up to 1 January 2017. However, the Prosecutor’s Office did not recognise the main violation: nationalisation directly contradicts to the norms of the Russian Constitution, yet the admitted detected violations only are suffice to cancel the law, ” said Vitaly Reznikov, head of YABLOKO’s Anti-Corruption Center.

YABLOKO has campaigned against the law of the Republic of Crimea “On the Specifics of Buying Out of Property”, which stipulates that the residents of Crimea may be deprived of any property in an extremely short term. The law envisages that the owner should be notified of “nationalisation” five days before the takeover; whereas the property is taken without a trial, that is, any property can be withdrawn any on an arbitrary decision of the authorities in Crimea.

“Contrary to the norms of the Russian law, the Crimean authorities began indiscriminate, brutal nationalisation with a sneer of a ridiculous redemption price,” Sergei Mitrokhin wrote in his blog post.

YABLOKO is going to challenge the law in court, but so far this has not been successful. The Supreme Court refused to transfer the case to a court of one of the subjects of the Russian Federation, referring in their refusals that “the applicant is not deprived of the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea”, which to date has not been created.