"Judge" Aleksandra Sergeyevna Lopatkina held a truly remarkable court hearing today on our election complaint. Incidentally repeating Gryzlov’s classic phrase.
She denied our request to call all witnesses. She denied all motions. She denied the request to obtain all documents. At the same time, during the hearing the mayor’s office was unable to wriggle out of the facts presented by our lawyers. It was acknowledged that, using budget funds, 2.4 million food packages worth more than 1.2 billion rubles were purchased and distributed immediately before the election. A representative of the mayor’s office called this "freelancing by the district administrations, which has nothing to do with the mayor’s office or Sobyanin." The city election commission acknowledged the fact of illegal campaigning by the newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva (print runs in the millions were distributed free of charge at public expense). The illegal use of personal data was also acknowledged (the "happy letter" sent to millions of pensioners). In response, the mayor’s office said: we merely ordered a "letter to older residents," and the personal data was used by a printing house in Podolsk, so take it up with them. As you might guess, our claims were denied. Of course, putting judges on trial is one of the most important things we will inevitably have to do in the future. P.S. There are still 951 complaints left.