Navalny may appeal court-imposed fine with European court - lawyer
MOSCOW. June 4 (Interfax) - Russian opposition blogger Alexei Navalny will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if he is unable to get a Russian court to annul a fine of 30,000 rubles slapped on him on Monday for less-than-complimentary comments about the United Russia party, Navalny's attorney said.
"If we fail to have that ruling abrogated, we will appeal to the European court, but there the period of processing is between a year and a half and five or six years," Vadim Kobzev told Interfax.
It was unsurprising, Kobzev argued, that State Duma deputy and United Russia member Vladimir Burmatov had suggested making it regular practice for United Russia members to respond to allegedly defamatory statements about the party with such suits.
"Actually, there's no way to prevent it except having this ruling repealed by an appeal court or supervisory authority. If the ruling comes into force, any member of the party will be able to bring such a suit and hypothetically win 30,000 rubles," the lawyer said.
If the ruling is not scrapped in Russia and goes to the European court, United Russia's 2 million members will have enough time to leave Navalny broke by the time the Strasbourg-based court passes its dictum, Kobzev said.
Earlier, Kobzev told Interfax the suit had been brought by "Vladimir Svirid, a rank-and-file member of United Russia, in connection with something that Navalny had said in an interview with Esquire magazine."
The statements that angered Svirid were: "If you've joined United Russia, you're still a thief. And if you aren't a thief, you're definitely a crook because you are using your name to shield other thieves and crooks."
Svirid demanded 1 million rubles as personal injury compensation, but the court slashed the sum to 30,000, declaring Navalny's statements to be untrue.