Translated material
Paper pigeons in court
July 18 . Today, another court hearing was held to appeal the decisions in the cases of spring detentions in Moscow. This time the case was heard regarding the anti-war rally on March 2 at Manezhka - Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
My client was traditionally accused of something that she did not commit, the police were traditionally not warned about liability for giving knowingly false testimony, and one of the judges Moskalenko, this time the one from the Tverskoy District Court, traditionally ignored all this and imposed an administrative penalty of in the form of a fine of 10 thousand rubles. Tverskaya Moskalenko, I must admit, went further than her colleagues and completely deprived my client of the right to defense, not allowing her into the trial on the grounds that she allegedly did not appear in court. The defendant, of course, was in court and even sat outside the door of the courtroom for all those several hours during which the consideration of the case was delayed, but they called her just at the moment when she had gone for a smoke break for a couple of minutes, and they said that the case had already reviewed without her when she returned.
Judge Skashchenko was waiting for us in Mosgor, who reluctantly listened to us about the peaceful nature of the action, the weapon of the crime - paper pigeons, with which my client was detained, but about which there is not a word in the case materials, about the fictitiousness of the accusation and the inadmissibility of evidence, as well as about the violation rights to protection.
As a result, formal grounds for canceling the decision of the Tverskoy District Court were nevertheless found—not allowing my client to attend the trial—and the case was sent for a new trial to the court of first instance.
Naturally, there is no need to talk about a crushing victory - the proceedings in the case clearly had to be stopped, which was not done. But taking into account existing judicial traditions, even such a result is still a result.
November 4 . Today, the next court hearing took place in the case of my client, who came out to Manezhnaya Square on March 2 in order to express a silent protest against the Federation Council’s approval of the decision of March 1, 2014 to send troops into the territory of Ukraine. The means of visual propaganda were two white paper doves, independently made by the defendant. The form of the public event is a single picket.
Despite this, the police charged the client with “participating in an unauthorized rally and shouting slogans.”
The previous ruling in this case, made by federal judge Moskalenko of the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow, was overturned by the Moscow City Court back in July, and the case was returned to the court of first instance.
Today, the case was heard by federal judge Orekhova, who spent the entire trial scribbling with a pen a piece of paper for notes with the face of a person who does not have warm feelings towards those present.
Our arsenal, in addition to traditional references to the norms of Russian and international law, was replenished with a demonstration of the weapon of the offense - a paper dove, which, despite its exceptional charm, expectedly did not make any impression on the presiding officer.
As a result, a single picket was recognized as a rally, a dove - slogans, the client - guilty, a fine - 10 thousand rubles.
The pigeon is destined to soon appear before a higher authority.