“What, run after everyone and introduce yourself?”

I went to the Moscow City Court to appeal the arrest on June 12, 2017. Actually, my entire participation in the events of June 12 consisted in the fact that I drove my graduates away from the riot police and fed them (not the riot police!) prisoner pie (aka mazurka, a traditional dish in our family that is prepared for all protests - dough , nuts and raisins). This is what let me down. Not seeing what I had in my hands, they detained me allegedly for distributing leaflets. On August 28, the Tver court, having considered my case without me, gave me a fine of 20 thousand rubles. Only two months later they deigned to send me the verdict. Then I sent an appeal, and Russian Post read it for three months. The Moscow City Court received the case only on February 12, 2018; on February 15, they called me and said that I had a trial on the 16th .

The judge’s decision itself (to uphold the fine and its amount) was made literally in 10 seconds. This was preceded by my explanations on the case, which were essentially, excuse me, turned by the judge into a bazaar.

Judge Anna Andreevna Seliverstova (born in 1982), worked in the Pushkin City Court (2013–2014), and has now moved to the Moscow City Court.

What did I learn as a result of my 20-minute explanations, which the judge turned into a bazaar?

1. That I was fined 200 thousand (oops, I misspoke).

2. That the European Convention and the decisions of the ECHR are not a decree for us, since in Germany they also disperse rallies.

3. How could I not hear the calls of the police, if “you film everything and post it on YouTube, you can hear it there too...”

4. How come there were no riots?! Navalny was summoned for questioning by the Investigative Committee on June 12.

5. And finally. I asked to drop the case, and if not, then reduce the fine (according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, it is possible to have less than the minimum, I have 20 thousand, half my salary). The judge looked at the place of work - the Memorial Society - and said: “Hasn’t the activities of Memorial been suspended?!” (Here I irreverently catch my jaw and answer that, actually, no...) Curtain.

If we talk about the materials of the case and the decision of the judge of the Tverskoy court (I wrote about this in part here ), then

1) Seliverstova refused to allow the prosecutor to participate in the case and to call the police. This is a gross violation of the principle of adversarial proceedings, and the inability to question witnesses is a violation of the right to a fair trial.

2) Place, time and event of the “administrative offense”.

The judge did not pay attention to the fact that the place of detention was indicated incorrectly (Tverskaya, house 17, while I was detained in the green zone opposite house 8 on Tverskoy Boulevard).

The time of detention was recorded as 18:30 (in reality - 17:15). We arrived at the police department at 17:50, I got inside at 21:10, and left at about 0:15. Moreover, in the protocol on administrative detention the time is stated as 18:30, and in the protocol on delivery it is stated as 18:10. That is, first I was delivered, and then detained.

If we talk about the events of June 12 themselves, the Tverskoy court ruling says that it was an “unauthorized public event.” My attempts to convey to Judge Seliverstova that there is no such concept in the law on rallies ( FZ-54 ) were unsuccessful...

If we talk about guilt, that is, first of all, about the intentionality of committing an administrative offense (and in the case it was written without any evidence that I knew about the discrepancy), then my position was as follows:

1) there is a closed list of responsibilities of participants in a public event (parts 3 and 4 of Article 6 of the law on rallies), which does not include the obligation to find out whether the event has been agreed upon or not;

2) the organizers (Navalny and Rubanov, but they were detained before I was detained) should know about the agreement;

3) how do you even imagine in this crowd, with the street blocked and so on, that I will look for the organizers and ask if it was agreed upon...

4) even if a public event is not approved, this is not a reason to disperse it (if there is no real threat to the life and health of citizens);

5) the only thing I could violate from the list of duties of participants in a public event was not to obey the demands of the police officers... Then the judge asked: “What, you even had 19.3?”

I also appealed to the fact that the demands must be legal (and they were not, since I was exercising my right to freedom of assembly) and, in addition, when arresting (clause 4 of Article 5 of the Law “On Police”) the police must introduce themselves, call the reason for the appeal and so on (here the judge said indignantly: “What, run after everyone and introduce yourself?!”), but this did not happen...

In general, thank you madam judge for the gross violations that increase my chances of winning in the ECHR, and wait for me, Strasbourg