Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov of Russia's Supreme Court will hear the lawsuit filed by the pro-Kremlin Rodina party seeking to remove the Yabloko party from the State Duma election ballot, the Sirena outlet reported. The hearing is scheduled for August 10 at the Supreme Court building in Moscow.
Kirillov is known for his involvement in politically charged cases. He ruled that the International Memorial human rights society was an "extremist" organization and rejected a lawsuit by Alexei Navalny against the prison administration and the Federal Penitentiary Service. In 2019, he was part of a panel of judges that upheld the decision to bar Ivan Zhdanov from running in Moscow city council elections. Because of rulings aimed at suppressing civil society, the judge was added by the Anti-Corruption Foundation to its registry of those involved in politically motivated persecution of the opposition.
Rodina accuses Yabloko of exceeding campaign spending limits. The lawsuit also claims that a number of materials supporting the party were distributed by "foreign agents" and through foreign social networks.
Earlier, Yulia Navalnaya, Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Lyubov Sobol, Andrei Pivovarov and other opposition politicians called on voters to support Yabloko on the party list. After that, Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky said Yabloko should be declared an "undesirable organization." Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov responded that the party has no connection with the opposition figures who endorsed it.