Press Release, 26.11.2021

Photo: Yabloko municipal deputies of Liteiny District, St.Petersburg, and lawyer Alexander Kobrinsky (second from right) / Photo by Petersburg Yabloko

The Constitutional Court of the RF upheld the complaint of Yabloko deputies in the St. Petersburg municipality of Liteiny District and called for a revision of the provision of the federal law on local self-government, which allows the head of the municipality to hold office until his/her successor takes office. Such a legal loophole allowed the ruling United Russia party to hold the post of the head of the municipality for two years, whereas, this person was not elected deputy by the residents of the district.

The verification of the law on local self-government began thanks to the statement of the Yabloko deputies of the municipal council of the Liteiny District. In the St.Petersburg municipal elections in 2019, Yabloko managed to get 11 out of 20 seats on the Municipal Council of the Liteiny District. Despite Yabloko’s majority in the Council, the Municipal Council was unable to elect its head for two years. Changes were made to the charter of the council four days before the elections. According to the new rules, the head of the municipality is elected not by a simple majority, but by a qualified one. A qualified majority means 2/3 of votes, which makes 14 votes in the Liteiny District. As a result of such a substitution, the duties of the head of the Municipal Council have been still performed by the representative of United Russia, Pavel Dainyak, who was elected by the previous convocation of the council, but lost the 2019 municipal elections and is not a municipal deputy any more. Lawyer Alexander Kobrinsky represented the interests of Yabloko in court.

The court concluded that in a situation when, due to the changed norm envisaging an increased number of votes, the head of the municipality cannot be elected, there are created the conditions so that the previously elected head could preserve the powers, and there are no regulatory constraints for the repeated reproduction of such a situation. Consequently, the principle of the change of power is violated and the powers of the deputies to elect a head from among them on the basis of a mandate received from the voters are limited.

The Constitutional Court noted in its decision that this “constitutionally unacceptable gap” would be corrected by the federal legislature soon and there would be established rules to determine the person who would exercise the powers of the head of the municipality if it is impossible to elect him/her by a qualified majority. Only after that the specific cases of the applicants from the Yabloko party should be reconsidered.

It should be noted that the decision to change the charter was prepared by Pavel Dainyak, the acting head of the Municipal Council on 4 September, 2019, four days before the municipal elections. The Ministry of Justice registered the changes to the charter on 20 September, 2019. Dainyak has been the head of the municipal council since 2009.