The dispute over the signatures of Valery Katkov, a candidate for municipal deputies of Vykhino-Zhulebino, ended with a lawsuit to protect the honor of an expert of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

The Lyubertsy City Court on Tuesday will consider the claim of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the South-Eastern District of Moscow against former candidate for municipal deputies Valery Katkov and the newspaper Zhulebinsky Boulevard, which he heads. The police demand to refute the critical statements disseminated by the defendant against Interior Ministry expert Natalya Rodionova, whom the election commission involved in checking signatures in support of the candidate. The expert says this is a rare case when a dispute over signatures turns into a litigation over business reputation.

In 2022, Valery Katkov participated in the elections of the council of deputies of the Vykhino-Zhulebino municipal district and submitted 38 signatures in his support to the election commission. However, eight of them were rejected by the expert of the ECC of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the South-Eastern Administrative District of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Natalya Rodionova, who decided that the dates in them were not put down by voters in their own hand, as required by law. As a result, Mr. Katkov’s registration was denied. He tried to challenge the refusal, but the Kuzminsky District Court came to the conclusion that the check was carried out in full accordance with the recommendations of the Central Election Commission, and the expert’s conclusion was reasonable and objective. The court did not take into account the “counter” conclusion of the specialist from Professional-Expert LLC, to which the applicant appealed, since this LLC is not a state expert institution and, therefore, does not have the authority to verify signature lists.

Valery Katkov expressed his disagreement with the circumstances on the pages of the publication Zhulebinsky Boulevard, which he heads, by publishing several articles in which he claimed that the expert deliberately invalidated the signatures in order to prevent him from participating in the elections. Police officers with such qualifications (and the ex-candidate demanded that a case be opened against the expert for falsifying evidence and giving false testimony) categorically disagreed.

As stated in the statement of claim, which was reviewed by Kommersant, the Ministry of Internal Affairs believes that Mr. Katkov’s publications contain information that does not correspond to reality, discredit the business reputation of the Internal Affairs Directorate in the South-East Administrative District, cause “significant harm to its authority as a public authority” and undermine “trust citizens to police officers.” Mr. Katkov’s use of a number of expressions helps to convince citizens of the lack of impartiality and legality in the activities of law enforcement agencies, the lawsuit emphasizes. At the same time, accusations of falsification of examination results are untrue, since they are not objectively confirmed by anything (the results of an internal audit are attached to the application), the Ministry of Internal Affairs assures. The use of derogatory expressions “has the goal of creating an image of a criminal, corrupt law enforcement officer, and creates a negative attitude towards government officials, which is absolutely unacceptable in modern conditions.”

Electoral lawyer Garegin Mitin admits that he is not aware of any cases where a dispute over signatures has escalated into a litigation over a good name. On the other hand, he adds, it is almost impossible to challenge the conclusion of a handwriting expert: theoretically this can happen, but for this the court must order a re-examination. In practice, the court trusts the expert who initially studied the signatures and proceeds from the fact that he is a disinterested person and, moreover, is responsible for his conclusion.

A Kommersant source in law enforcement agencies says that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has long learned to respond to unfounded criticism, and claims for the protection of honor and dignity have become one of the most common categories of disputes initiated by the department. And this is logical, because negative information gives citizens a distorted idea of ​​government agencies, explains Kommersant’s interlocutor. And if the candidate did not agree with the results of the audit, he should have sought changes to the election legislation, he adds.

Anastasia Kornya