Novosibirsk oppositionists expelled from the city council are trying to regain deputyship

In Novosibirsk on Tuesday, consideration of the claims of former City Council deputies Helga Pirogova and Sergei Boyko (recognized as a foreign agent) began, demanding to cancel the decision of the city parliament to terminate their powers for violating anti-corruption laws. According to law enforcement agencies, Messrs. Pirogova and Boyko, who have been living abroad for a long time, did not properly report their income for 2022. The oppositionists themselves assure that they sent all the necessary notifications to the governor’s administration within the time limits established by law.

On August 1, the Central District Court of Novosibirsk began to consider two administrative cases on the claims of former city council deputies. In the first of them, Helga Pirogova and Sergey Boyko ask to declare illegal the submission of the Novosibirsk prosecutor’s office, on the basis of which the City Council on June 28, 2023 deprived them of their mandates. According to ex-deputies, the prosecutor’s office went beyond its powers, since this issue is under the jurisdiction of the governor. In the second claim it is a question of a recognition illegal of the decision of the City Council.

Helga Pirogova and Sergey Boyko were elected to the city council in 2020 as non-partisan self-nominated members of the Novosibirsk-2020 coalition, an informal association supported by supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Boyko left Russia in the fall of 2021, saying that he feared arrest in a criminal case on the creation of an extremist community: he previously headed the Novosibirsk headquarters of Mr. Navalny (the network of these headquarters is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation). And Mrs. Pirogova went abroad in July 2022 after a criminal case was opened against her for spreading fakes about the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

As previously reported by Kommersant, on June 28, the City Council with an overwhelming majority of votes deprived both of their parliamentary powers due to the loss of confidence. This decision was made on the recommendation of the prosecutor’s office, which claims that Messrs. Pirogova and Boyko did not provide information about their income as part of the 2023 declaration campaign.

During the court hearings on August 1, the representative of the ex-deputies, Olga Nechaeva, said that Helga Pirogova and Sergey Boyko sent the necessary notifications about transactions made in 2022 (a simplified form of the income statement introduced in 2023) to the administration of the governor by mail until April 30 2023 (deadline for reporting). “Why they weren’t accepted, I don’t know,” Ms. Nechaeva said. According to her, when preparing the submission, the Novosibirsk prosecutor’s office did not ask for any explanations from the deputies who were suspected of violating anti-corruption laws. In addition, their written explanations were not taken into account by the city council.

The representative of the prosecutor’s office of the Novosibirsk region, Maxim Vakorin, said at the trial that the governor’s administration informed the prosecutor’s office about the lack of reporting from two deputies on May 3. According to him, during the preparation of the submission, the prosecutor’s office did not contact the two named deputies, but this was not part of its duties. “Do not trust this information (from the governor’s administration.— “b”) there were no grounds,” said Mr. Vakorin. According to the prosecutor’s office, she had the legal right to send such a submission to the city council.

In turn, the head of the department for legal and economic issues of the City Council, Olga Kondratenko, noted that the presentation of the prosecutor’s office was not the only basis for making a decision to deprive him of his deputy powers. According to her, information about the violation of anti-corruption legislation by two deputies was also provided to the city parliament by one of the vice-governors. In addition, the TFR authorities informed the City Council that the signatures under the notifications sent to the governor’s administration did not belong to Helga Pirogova and Sergei Boyko. “Only in this compound (data from three sources.— “b”) and in this aggregate the city council received sufficient grounds to terminate the powers of deputies ahead of schedule,” Ms. Kondratenko explained.

When considering a lawsuit against the city council, the ex-deputies petitioned to suspend the consideration of this case until the court decision on the lawsuit against the prosecutor’s office comes into force. The defendant’s side asked to merge the two cases into one, as well as to involve the regional government and the TFR as interested parties. The court denied these requests.

The hearing will continue in a week. The court, in particular, intends to familiarize itself with the notifications of two deputies sent to the governor’s administration.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk