The Constitutional Court refused to accept for consideration a complaint about double qualification from those convicted in the Bolotnaya case

The Constitutional Court refused to accept for consideration the complaint of Alexei Gaskarov and Andrei Barabanov, convicted in the Bolotnaya case, about the impossibility of qualifying the same criminal event simultaneously under several articles, if the norms of one already include the other. Gaskarov and Barabanov, sentenced to three years and six months and three years and seven months in prison, respectively, on charges of violence against a government official and participation in mass riots, filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court in early July.

“Both applicants, according to the charges, were charged with assaulting police officers, which did not cause harm to their health. The applicants argued that violence against a government official is a special case of violence in general, and the article on riots already states that these actions are associated with violence. Considering that Article 318 is less serious, there was no reason to impose it,” Pavel Chikov, head of the human rights organization “Agora,” explained the position of the applicants.

“Kommersant” , “the contested provisions of part two of Article 212 and part one of Article 318 of the Criminal Code contain a description of essentially different crimes that differ in their generic object (in the first case it is public safety, in the second - the order of management), the objective side (which is expressed in participation in mass riots in the first case and in the use of violence not dangerous to life or health, or the threat of violence against a government official or his relatives in connection with the performance of his official duties - in the other) and, accordingly, the content of the subjective side . These norms do not correlate with each other as general and special, as a whole and a part, since they cannot be considered as components of each other.”

According to the judges of the Constitutional Court, based on these arguments, the court decided to “refuse to accept for consideration the complaint of citizens Andrey Nikolaevich Barabanov and Alexey Vladimirovich Gaskarov, since it does not meet the requirements of the Federal Law “On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation,” according to which the complaint is considered admissible.” The decision of the Constitutional Court on this complaint is final and not subject to appeal, the court said.

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