The Moscow City Court explained why it refused to comply with the ECHR’s demand for Navalny’s release

The Moscow City Court published a ruling on Alexei Navalny’s complaint against the court’s decision to replace his suspended sentence with a real one. It explains why the court ignored the ECHR's demand to immediately release the politician. The text of the document was placed in the case file, and Meduza drew attention to this.

According to Judge Dmitry Balashov, “[the ECHR] is not a higher court for the judicial system of the Russian Federation” and does not have the right “to give the courts of the Russian Federation any categorical instructions and interfere in the activities of national courts.” The judge also pointed out that the Strasbourg court addressed its decision not to the courts, but to the Russian government.

The court called the arguments of Navalny’s defense about political motives in the case “unfounded speculation […] of a speculative nature.” “They are not confirmed by any objective data and therefore cannot be taken into account,” the decision says.

On February 17, the ECHR demanded that Russia immediately release Navalny. The court said immediate release was necessary due to the “risk to life” of Navalny and “all the circumstances of the deprivation of liberty.” Failure to comply with the decision may result in a violation of the convention, which will be considered as an obstacle to the effective execution of the court decision.

• On February 2, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow satisfied the request of the Federal Penitentiary Service to replace the suspended sentence with a real one in the Yves Rocher case. On February 20, the Moscow City Courtupheld this decision . According to the court decision, Navalny will spend two and a half years in prison. The politicianwas transferred to a correctional colony in the Vladimir region

• In 2014, brothers Alexei and Oleg Navalny were found guilty of fraud (Part 2 and Part 3 of Article 159.4 of the Criminal Code) and money laundering (Part 2 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code) in the Yves Rocher case. Oleg was sentenced to three and a half years of real life, Alexey - to three and a half years of probation. According to investigators, the brothers stole more than 26 million rubles from the Yves Rocher Vostok company and more than four million rubles from the Multidisciplinary Processing Company. Back in 2013, Yves Rocher provided the Investigative Committee with a report according to which no damage was caused to the company.