The Council of Europe demanded that Navalny be allowed to participate in the presidential elections

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which oversees the implementation of ECHR decisions, recognized a violation of the rights of politician Alexei Navalny and demanded that he be allowed to participate in the elections, the Council said in a statement.

As RBC reports , in 2016, the ECHR declared the first court decision in the Kirovles case illegal and called for stopping the infringement of the politician’s rights in connection with the court ruling.

The committee's report said that after the verdict was overturned, Russian authorities referred the case for a new trial, without ordering any compensation for the first court decision in favor of Navalny. The Council believes that the politician was unable to obtain the right to a fair hearing because the case was transferred to the same court.

In July 2013, Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov were found guilty of fraud. The ECHR ruled that their rights had been violated, after which, in November 2016, the Supreme Court of Russia overturned the verdict and returned the case for a new trial. In February 2017, a court in Kirov again found Navalny guilty and sentenced him to five years of probation.

The politician's criminal record prevents him from registering for the 2018 presidential election.