Press Release, 2.06.2022

Photo: Lev Shlosberg and Nikolai Kuzmin / Photo from social networks

Two complaints were filed with the Constitutional Court of Russia against the constitutionality of the norms of the Russian electoral legislation, which established restrictions on participation in elections for “persons involved in the activities of extremist organisations”.

The complaints filed by Lev Shlosberg, leader of the Pskov branch of Yabloko, and Nikolai Kuzmin, an activist of the regional branch of the party. In August 2021, the courts canceled their registration as candidates for deputies of the State Duma of Russia and the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies from the Yabloko party on the grounds of “involvement in extremist activities” due to their alleged organization and participation in unpermitted public events in Pskov in January 2021.

Lev Shlsoberg’s commentary:

We demand that the norms of paragraph 3.6 of the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation” and Parts 8.1-8.4 of the Federal Law “On Elections of Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation” be recognised as inconsistent with the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

We believe that these norms of laws violate the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation:

– on political diversity (Article 13, Part 3);

– on directly effective rights and freedoms that determine the meaning and content of the activities of public authority (Article 18);

– on the prohibition of discrimination (Article 19, Parts 1 and 2);

– on freedom of speech and thought (Article 29, Parts 1 and 4);

– on the right to participate in the managing of state affairs, the right to elect and be elected (Article 32, Parts 1 and 2);

– on the prohibition of the retroactive effect of the law (Article 54, Parts 1 and 2);

– on the prohibition to issue laws that abolish or diminish the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, as well as on an exhaustive list of grounds for restricting such rights and freedoms (Article 55, Parts 2 and 3).

The complaints to the Constitutional Court have been prepared by lawyers of the Institute of Law and Public Policy, who represent our interests.

The Russian authorities knew what issues the State Duma of the Eighth Convocation would decide. The task was set was to prevent the election to parliament of a single deputy who did not agree with Vladimir Putin’s policy, that is, to carry out a complete preliminary political cleansing of the federal parliament. Many methods were used to achieve this, including a hastily adopted law banning politicians allegedly “involved” in the activities of organisations recognised as extremist from participating in elections. The criteria for such “recognition” were vague, the law can be applied to any person who publicly disagreed with the authorities.

Moreover, the law did receive a retroactive effect, although one of the authors of the law, Senator Andrei Klishas, ​​publicly stated in May 2021 in Parliamentary Newspaper that in order to apply the law, it would be necessary to recognise the candidate as involved in the activities of an extremist organisation after the law comes into force, and such a decision of the court should also enter into force only after the entry into force of the law. Moreover, the court’s decision to recognise an organization as extremist was also supposed to come into force after the law coming into effect.

All of these statements turned out to be misleading. There were no separate court decisions on the “involvement” [in the activities of “extremist organisations”] on myself and Nikolai Kuzmin, but the courts considered it acceptable for one and the same court in a single decision to resolve the issue of “involvement” and, without waiting for the decision to come into force, cancelling the decision on candidate’s registration. The decisions of the Pskov City Court on “involvement” adopted in January 2021 and adopted as part of the proceedings under the Code of Administrative Offenses, were used as “model” decisions.

We went through the four “floors” of judicial instances, including cassation and supervision in the Supreme Court, and, despite the apparent hesitation of the judges of the Supreme Court, we could not defend our right.

The fundamental decision on the intention to file a complaint with the Constitutional Court was made during the disputes in the courts of general jurisdiction in August 2021. We have been preparing complaints for several months and now we are demanding that the very norms of the law, which made it possible to arbitrarily restrict the electoral rights of citizens, be declared inconsistent with the Constitution of Russia.

On 30 May, 2022, both the complaints were filed with the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. On 1 June, the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court began studying them.

LEV SHLOSBERG

is a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and Chair of the Pskov regional branch of the party. Headed the Yabloko faction in the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies