April 29, 2020

Moscow residents sue City Hall for "illegal" restrictions

topic:	Rule of Law
located:	Russia
editor:	Igor Serebryany

Lockdown measures enforced in Moscow have not been excessive nor do they violate residents' rights, Mayor of the Russian capital Sergei Sobyanin said.

The city hall responded on Tuesday to the complaints filed to the city court by five different citizen groups the week before. The claimants insist that Sobyanin's decrees contradict the Constitution. They also point at the Mayor's refusal to declare a formal state of emergency in the 10-million megapolis. Claimants believe that Sobyanin created the legal "grey zone", which allows the city authorities to rule arbitrarily during the coronavirus outbreak.

In its bill of particulars, the City Hall stresses that the measures in question "don't violate human rights but make them responsible for self-restriction, including free movement".

Earlier this month, courts in the regions of Bryansk and Astrakhan denied similar claims, citing the "necessity of those measures under the current epidemiological situation". The courts stated those measures did not contradict the federal Law About Emergencies.

Chances that the ruling of the Moscow court will be different are slim, a retired member of the Constitutional Court Tamara Morshchakova expects. "The Russian Constitution disapproves any measures restricting the substance of the rights, even if the measures don't introduce it formally. The claimants have to prove in the court that the acts of Moscow authorities have been disproportional against the objectives declared", she says adding that this is particularly difficult to prove judicially.

"Exitus acta probat [...] The end justifies the means", isn't a judicial category, a former judge stresses, noting that the calls to the Moscow authorities to act in accordance with the Law About Emergencies are "naive enough", a kind of "infant questions". Though, she admits, the claimants might ask them deliberately because answering such questions is usually more demanding than facing "politically correct" and measured inquiries.

"Their claims are utopian. It's naive to expect that if the authorities declare the state of emergency formally, they would become more picky and accurate in their acts. On the opposite, the authorities would justify any tightening the screws by that Law, while citizens lose a possibility, however ghostly, to appeal to the courts", Morshchakova says.

"If the authorities don't meet their obligations outside the emergency law regime, why would one hope that they will do that under a formal emergency situation? Sergei Sobyanin claims with no trace of hesitation that he doesn't restrict any freedoms of the Muscovites. Why do you expect him to commit fewer excesses under the formal state of emergency?" she says.

The Mayor's line of defence has been based on rather shaky ground, says a judge of the Human Rights court Natalia Rolina. "Formally speaking, no citizen has been fined for violation of the quarantine regime because there's not a single word about that regime in Sobyanin's decrees. This is what the City Hall employs to prove its position in the court. All repressions put to use by Moscow police are due to some other violations but not for the violation of the non-existent emergency regime", she says.

Judicial eloquence apart, the police fine people for "phantom offences"; not for some actual wrongdoings but for violation of the restrictions which have never been introduced legally.

"This is a sort of judicial "Russian doll". A person is punished for violation of the laws at its 'outer layer', say for noncompliance with police demands. But in reality, the person is fined for leaving their apartment – this is the 'inner layer' of that judicial doll", Rolina explains.

The Mayor has to explain to the court how "recommendations" to obey the quarantine restrictions rendered themselves into obligations in practice. "It is possible to punish someone for the violation of the obligations but not the recommendation", the lawyer stresses.

She also believes that whatever line of defence the Mayor's lawyers follow, the court will rule in Sobyanin's favour.

Image by Наркологическая Клиника

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