Crimean lawyer Emil Kurbedinov was not expelled from the bar, despite the request of the Ministry of Justice

The Crimean Central Bar Association refused, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, to exclude Emil Kurbedinov, who represents the interests of one of the arrested Ukrainian sailors. Kurbedinov himself spoke about this to Mediazona.

As Kurbedinov reported, the president of the Crimean Chamber of Lawyers, Elena Kanchi, and the chairman of the board, Islyam Velilyaev, called the warning from the Ministry of Justice “illegal and unfounded” and refused to expel Kurbedinov.

“I did not violate any lawyer’s ethics, and the fact that there were administrative cases - they are not related to my practice as a lawyer,” the lawyer recounted the board’s decision.

In January, the Ministry of Justice demanded that Kurbedinov be excluded from the membership and founders of the bar, citing decisions court that arrested him for publishing a video from the Crimean Hizb ut-Tahrir rally, recognized as a terrorist organization. Both times the lawyer was found guilty of displaying extremist symbols (Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code).

The Ministry of Justice, referring to the Federal Law “On Non-Profit Organizations” No. 7-FZ, argued that a person in whose actions the court has established “signs of extremist activity” cannot be a founder or member of an NPO.

Kurbedinov represented the interests of one of the Ukrainian sailors arrested after the conflict between Russian border guards and the Ukrainian military, which occurred last fall in the Kerch Strait area.