Communists preparing to challenge new rallies law at Constitutional Court
MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax) - The Russian Communist Party has formed a working group to draft an appeal to the Constitutional Court regarding the rallies law, which tightens punishment for rally violations.
"The party administration has formed a working group, which will draft a legally grounded appeal to the Constitutional Court. In our opinion, the drafting will take two or three months," deputy head of the party's legal service, head of the communist faction at the Moscow City Duma Andrei Klychkov told Interfax on Saturday.
The appeal must be signed by no less than 90 State Duma deputies, he said.
"We are holding negotiations with the faction of A Just Russia on the joint filing of the application. If no agreement is reached, the communists, who have 92 seats in the State Duma, may do that alone," he said.
Explaining the lengthy period of the document drafting, Klychkov said, "It is necessary to prove with legal arguments the absence of the need for so strict sanctions as regards organizers and participants in public actions."
"We, the communists, yearly hold plenty of rallies in the capital city and throughout the country to express our disagreement with certain steps of the authorities. We are confident that effective laws cannot be changed only because the authorities disliked or were perturbed by two or three public actions in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue," he said.
The communist deputies will also challenge the legitimacy of the State Duma election of December 4, 2011, at the Supreme Court before the end of June, Klychkov said.
