The Supreme Court of Russia liquidated PARNAS – Kommersant

The Supreme Court of Russia satisfied the claim of the Ministry of Justice on the liquidation of the “Party of People’s Freedom” (PARNAS), reports Interfax. In accordance with the decision of the court, regional branches and other structural divisions of the party are also subject to liquidation. The decision of the court has not yet entered into force and can be appealed.

In its lawsuit, the Ministry of Justice drew attention to the law “On Political Parties”, according to which a party must have regional branches in at least half of the Russian regions. However, PARNAS does not have the necessary number of regional offices, the ministry noted. “The party does not make any attempts to increase the number of regional branches and eliminate the identified violations. The situation is only getting worse,” a representative of the ministry stressed during the court session.

In turn, the PARNAS lawyer emphasized that the party was not aware of the closure of some of the regional branches and the audit. At present, the party is represented by 40 branches, two of them have been liquidated, but the relevant decisions have not yet come into force. The representative of the party also insisted that the necessary half of the regions should be counted not from 89 entities, but from 85, since in the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions annexed to Russia in September 2022, executive authorities controlling political parties will be created only by the summer current year.

PARNAS traces its history back to the Republican Party of Russia (RPR), founded in 1990. In 2007, the RPR was liquidated by the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia. In 2010, the founding congress of the People’s Freedom Party “For Russia without arbitrariness and corruption” was held. Mikhail Kasyanov, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Vladimir Milov (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) became co-chairs of the new party.

In 2012, the Supreme Court overturned the liquidation decision based on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. On the basis of the RPR, the “People’s Freedom Party” began to operate. Vladimir Milov left the party in 2011, Vladimir Ryzhkov in 2014. Boris Nemtsov led the party from 2012 to 2015. In December 2016, the PARNAS Congress re-elected Mikhail Kasyanov as party chairman. In 2022, Mr. Kasyanov left Russia.

Milena Kostereva