The court in Elista overturned the restrictions on pickets adopted by the city hall

The Elista city court satisfied the claim of local activist Valentina Erdniyeva against the city administration and declared the decree “On places where public events are prohibited” invalid. This is reported by the publication "Kavkaz.Realii".

In 2004, the Elista mayor's office expanded the list of places where public events and single pickets are prohibited. At the same time, city authorities do not have such powers.

Erdnieva and other activists were often brought to administrative responsibility for violating the established procedure for holding public events precisely because of this decision. For example, picketers were regularly detained for protesting in front of the government building and a park in the center of Elista - the police said that this area adjoins the building of the Arbitration Court of Kalmykia, near which one cannot picket according to federal law. Erdniyeva, with the help of a cadastral certificate, proved in court that these were different plots.

OVD-Info lawyer and analyst Denis Shedov commented on the court's decision: “It is a very interesting case. In general, a lot of things are wonderful in the restriction itself: firstly, municipal authorities cannot restrict places for public events; secondly, even regional authorities cannot limit the places for any pickets, including single ones; thirdly, in 2019 and 2020, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation declared unacceptable a number of restrictions on public events at the level of regional laws, including near government buildings. Since then, many regions have changed their laws. The Federal Law on Public Events does indeed restrict protests outside courthouses. At the same time, the key decision of the ECtHR on freedom of assembly “Lashmankin and others v. Russia” specifically states that the ban on holding actions near courts is a disproportionate restriction on freedom of assembly, and it should be repealed. In March of this year, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will once again demand report of the Russian authorities on the implementation of the said decision of the European Court, including in terms of the lifting of absolute bans on holding meetings near courts”.