Ombudsman Tatyana Potyaeva asks the Moscow City Court to reveal the practice of articles about fakes about the army

The Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow, Tatyana Potyaeva, found out “Kommersant”, turned to the chairman of the Moscow City Court Mikhail Ptitsyn with a request to “analyze the application” of Art. 207 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This, we recall, is the article on “dissemination of false information about the RF Armed Forces”, introduced in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in March; to date, at least 80 people (including politicians and journalists) are involved in it.

An appeal to the chairman of the Moscow City Court was sent after a corresponding letter to Ms. Potyaeva from a group of 35 lawyers. In September, more about this told “b”. Then the lawyers asked the Ombudsman to intervene in the practice of “arbitrary” application of the norm on “false information” about the Russian army to activists, journalists and politicians. The authors pointed out that the provisions of Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “are worded extremely vaguely”, but the district courts, which have the opportunity to ask the Constitutional Court of Russia for clarifications of the norm, refuse to use this opportunity.

“Sharing your concern about the practice of applying the provisions of Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, I sent an appeal to the Chairman of the Moscow City Court Ptitsyn M. Yu. on the issue of analyzing the application of the norms of substantive and procedural law by the district courts of the city of Moscow when considering and resolving criminal cases on charges of committing crimes under this article, ”— says in the response of Tatyana Potyaeva, sent to the lawyer “OVD-Info” (the project is included in the register of foreign agents) Katerina Tertukhina. A copy of the letter is available to Kommersant.

It also states that the Ombudsman also appealed to the Moscow prosecutor Denis Popov with a request to check the verdict that has entered into force on the Moscow municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov. Recall that he was the first in the Russian Federation to be sentenced to real imprisonment under Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for a period of seven years. Later, the Moscow City Court reduced the sentence by one month. In a September letter from lawyers to Tatyana Potyaeva, Mr. Gorinov’s situation illustrated the practice of applying the “false information” rule to deputies.

Maria Starikova