Officially Untouchable?

Russians have lately held protest actions aganist unlawful usage of blue lights on officials’ cars. But while activists and media have been protesting, “blue lights” of another kind are flashing not in streets but in courts. If so, where can one apply for justice?

Last year IIFD lawyers applied to the head of the Presidential Administration department for processing citizens’ applications but no reply has been received within the term defined by legal norms. So an application contesting the official’s lack of action was filed to the Tverskoy district court of Moscow.

At last the IIFD has received the court definition rejecting the application and stating the following:
“Contesting in court actions of state power bodies and their officials subordinate directly to the President of the Russian Federation, as well as bringing suits against these state bodies, means practically direct or indirect intervention to constitutional/legal and other activities of the President of Russia as the state head that has immunity and performs supreme state power in the Russian Federation; this is inadmissable and violating the Russian Federation constitutional system basic principles together with the power segregation principle stated in the Article 10 of the Russian Constitution”.

Does this mean that any official from the Presidential administration automatically gets presidential immunity? And in the Constitution there is also Article 46 stating that desicions and actions (or lack of action) of state power bodies may be contested in court…

Ivan Pavlov, IIFD Board Chair: “Of course we will appeal against this definition to the higher court instance. The Tverskoy court seems to have forgotten the Russian Constitution allowing to contest in court actions of the President as well as of any other official. In this case, we have no claim against the President. But we do claim against actions of an official whose main duty is to work with applications from the public”.