Well then, after receiving a final refusal from every level of the Russian court system, we’re taking this to the Constitutional Court.
As you may recall, Prosecutor General Chaika, a crook and a thug, claimed that our investigation into his family was the work of Western intelligence agencies. He even published a special letter in Kommersant (a Russian business daily):
All of this is a direct and obvious lie. My last name is mentioned several times in the text, so we immediately said we would sue Chaika. In court, he should inevitably lose, because he will not be able to prove his nonsense.
However, a very real order seems to have gone out across the Russian judicial system: Navalny must not be allowed to sue Chaika.
Every court we turned to rejected us on one pretext or another—either we had filed outside Chaika’s place of residence, or “Navalny’s interests were not affected.” We even commissioned an expert analysis confirming that when Chaika wrote “A. Navalny” in his letter, he meant me. We were still turned down—even by a St. Petersburg court.
Accordingly, today we filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court. The last time I checked the Constitution, it did not contain an article titled “On Certain Restrictions Imposed on A.A. Navalny, born in 1976.”
So in principle, I should still retain the right—at least in theory, even if defeat is guaranteed—to defend my interests in court. Let them decide.
You can read the full complaint here.