The Supreme Court liquidated PARNAS – Vedomosti

The Supreme Court satisfied the claim of the Ministry of Justice on the liquidation of the political party PARNAS. The reason for the liquidation, according to the Ministry of Justice, was the fact that PARNAS had a smaller number of regional branches than required by the federal law “On Political Parties”.

During the court session, representatives of the department explained that, by law, political parties in Russia must have regional headquarters in more than half of the subjects. At the same time, according to the Ministry of Justice, PARNAS has less than 40 of them, and two branches have been liquidated recently (the decisions have not yet entered into force).

The plaintiff drew the attention of the court to the fact that there are claims against some branches of PARNAS from the tax service. As the representative of the ministry explained to the court, the regional offices also ignore the claims of the department. “The situation is getting worse <...>. The party is not making any attempts to increase the number of regional branches and eliminate the identified violations,” the Ministry of Justice said. In their opinion, the party had enough time to eliminate the identified violations, since all the materials of the inspections were sent to them.

The defendants did not agree with the position of the ministry and insisted on the illegality of the inspection. Moreover, PARNAS claims that they were not aware of the closure of their branches. The calculations about the number of regional branches are wrong, party representatives say.

Lawyers noted that the Ministry of Justice proceeded from the total number of subjects together with the regions that became part of Russia (89 subjects), despite the fact that executive bodies controlling political parties (that is, subdivisions of the Ministry of Justice) have not yet started working in the new regions. Such bodies will be created only by the summer of 2023, the lawyers pointed out, so at the moment the calculation had to be made from the total number of subjects – 85.

However, even in this case, 40 regional branches would not be enough to maintain a party license.

In March 2023, the St. Petersburg City Court satisfied the claim of the regional department of the Ministry of Justice to liquidate the local branch. “In a short time, the state registration of seven regional branches of the party was cancelled. In a number of cases, the leadership of the branches was not even informed about the actions of the Ministry of Justice, which excluded the possibility of challenging the decision of the authorities,” the statement on the party’s website, dated April 24, says.

At the same time, the Ministry of Justice, according to the party, prevented the creation of new regional branches by the party. After that, on May 3, the Novosibirsk Regional Court liquidated the regional department. The court department told Interfax that the defendant did not appear at the hearing. The reason for the liquidation is violations of the law “On political parties” committed by the department and not eliminated by it.

The PARNAS statement points to the party’s disagreement with the current course of the President of Russia. In addition, despite the lack of registration, the party members intend to continue their political work. Party leader Mikhail Kasyanov (Prime Minister in 2000-2004) did not respond to Vedomosti’s request. In the summer of 2022, he left Russia.

The history of PARNAS is connected with the Republican Party of Russia, created in 1990 on the basis of the Democratic Platform group that separated from the CPSU. The most successful for the RPR were the elections to the State Duma of the first convocation: then five members of the party from the “Choice of Russia” (took second place, receiving 15.51% of the vote), and seven from the Yabloko bloc became deputies. Only one of the co-chairmen of the party, Vladimir Lysenko, has already passed to the second convocation. At the beginning of 2005, independent deputies of the State Duma joined the RPR, including Vladimir Ryzhkov and Mikhail Zadornov (the latter soon went to work in VTB 24).

In 2007, the party was deregistered by a decision of the Supreme Court at the request of the Federal Registration Service, because its activities did not comply with the provisions of the Law on Political Parties. At that time, the party counted only 39,500 people and 33 branches, while at least 50,000 members and 45 branches were required by law.

The “modern” stage of the party’s work began later. In April 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the liquidation of the RPR was “unfounded” and violated the right to freedom of assembly and association. In January 2012, the Supreme Court of Russia, already on the basis of the verdict of the ECtHR, canceled its own decision to liquidate the RPR, in April the case was finally closed. In May of the same year, the registration of the party was restored by the Ministry of Justice.

By this time, the leaders of the RPR (Vladimir Ryzhkov), the Russian People’s Democratic Union (Kasyanov), the Solidarity (Boris Nemtsov) and the Democratic Choice (Vladimir Milov, recognized as a foreign agent) movements had been cooperating for two years in a coalition called ” For Russia without arbitrariness and corruption. The decision of the Supreme Court, on the one hand, coincided with the beginning of Medvedev’s democratization, when the party-building boom began. On the other hand, it made it possible to legalize this organization on the basis of a previously existing party: in June 2012, a congress was held in Moscow, as a result of which Ryzhkov, Nemtsov and Kasyanov became co-chairs of the RPR-PARNAS (Milov left the organization at the start).

In early 2014, Ryzhkov resigned as RPR-PARNAS co-chairman. There are two co-chairs left, the party has lost the RPR prefix. Soon Nemtsov was killed. To date, only one representative of the former leadership has remained in the party – Kasyanov.

In 2016, other politicians left the party, including the deputy chairman of the party and a native of Solidarity, Ilya Yashin (foreign agent, convicted in the case of fakes about the army). The party no longer participated in the Duma elections in 2021: the Ministry of Justice notified PARNAS about the suspension of state registration for a period of three months. In 2020-2021 the party was no longer active.