Alexei Navalny
Secretary of the CEC, Maya Grishina said about the impossibility of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to run. This comment she gave shortly after the Kirov regional court upheld the imposition of a conditional sentence policy on the matter of “Kirovles”, reports TASS.
“Without regard to any persons, Russian citizens are not eligible to be elected if they are convicted to imprisonment for committing grave and especially grave crimes and have a day of voting in elections and unwithdrawn outstanding conviction for such crimes,” she said.
Navalny convicted under part 4 of article 160 of the Russian Criminal code (“Misappropriation and embezzlement”) which provides till 10 years of imprisonment. This crime belongs to the category of serious.
Wednesday, may 3, the Kirov regional court upheld the judgement of the Lenin district court of Kirov the sentence Navalny and entrepreneur Peter Ofitserova (the second defendant).
Grishin spoke about the provisions of the Federal legislation (item 5.2 of article 3 of the law “On presidential elections”). Himself opposition believes that the Constitution leaves him the opportunity to advance. It is not to be elected are citizens recognized by court incapacitated, and also containing in places of imprisonment. A politician can achieve in the constitutional court recognition of a rule that prevents its participation in the campaign, the appropriate primary law of the country. In addition, there is still a chance that the European court of human rights (ECHR) acknowledged the repeated verdict of the Russian court to be illegal.
Protection Navalny and Ofitserov has already declared that will appeal against the verdict in Strasbourg, bypassing the Supreme court.
In February 2017, the Leninsky district court of Kirov sentenced Navalny to five years probation for arranging the theft of property of state enterprise “Kirovles”, and ofitserova to four years for aiding and abetting. Politician and businessman got the same time as in 2013 (when they first appointed real punishment, which is then replaced by a conditional). Because the court considered that the three years since the verdict has already passed, the sentence Navalny will expire in August 2018.
The verdict 2013 was cancelled by the Presidium of the Supreme court in November 2016, following the ECtHR judgments that found violations of the rights of the defendants. The case was sent for retrial. Politics is the second suspended sentence of 3.5 years in the case of “Yves Rocher”.
Navalny has announced his intention to nominate his candidacy for the presidential elections in the spring of 2018.