How politicians achieve compensation for withdrawal from the elections
The Constitutional Court is increasingly recognizing the right to compensation for parties and candidates withdrawn from elections with violation of the law. Such a mechanism is used in cases where the violation is detected, but cannot serve as the basis for revising the voting results. However, as “Kommersant” found out, it is not easy for politicians to take advantage of the fruits of victory: at best, candidates can count on the symbolic “encouraging legal activity”.
A few years ago, the compensatory mechanism was exotic, but recently it began to be filled with real content, the Member of the Central Election Commission Yevgeny Kolyushin stated, speaking on March 19 at a round table in the State Duma dedicated to judicial practice in election affairs. Such a freshest decision was the decision of the Constitutional Court (CS) on the complaint Pskov « Yabloko »whose candidates were not admitted to the municipal elections due to doubts about the authority of the new head of the regional department (See “Kommersant” from March 19). And last fall, compensation was achieved Orenburg branch of the Communist Partywhose election commander, due to a typo in the document, refused to certify the list of candidates for deputies of the Orsk City Council in several districts. The party estimated the damage suffered at 1 million rubles, but only on the second attempt did the Soviet district court of Orsk awarded it 100 thousand rubles.
The first politician who managed to use the compensatory mechanism was the Muscovite Sergey Tsukasov. In 2019, he tried to run for the Moscow City Duma as a self-nominated person, but was removed from the elections due to the fact that instead of the word “absent” in a certificate of property left a gap. In 2021, the KS, having examined the complaint of Mr. Tsukasov, allowed the candidates to correct “minor errors”, and for the ex-Candidate he recognized the right to compensation. Sergei Tsukasov asked the state to compensate him for the amount of funds spent on the polls (330 thousand rubles), but the Moscow City Court decided that “the use of compensatory mechanisms should not lead to compensation for adverse consequences of property nature” and prescribed compensation for 30 thousand rubles. as « encouragement of legal activity. »
This precedent was adopted by other courts. So, similar compensation, and also as an incentive of legal activity, last year Muscovite sued last year Ekaterina Silaevawho in 2022 lost the opportunity to compete for the mandate of the municipal deputy in two districts – East Izmailovo and Gagarinsky. In electoral documents, the woman indicated that she was “self -employed”, and this was qualified as inaccurate information about the kind of candidate’s occupation. In 2024, the Constitutional Court decided that the refusal to a candidate to call himself self -employed limits his electoral capabilities, and recognized the applicant the right to compensation. She estimated the damage to the damage at 2.2 million rubles, but representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Mosgorisbirkom considered the amount of unreasonable, and the Gagarinsky court reduced it to 30 thousand rubles. The Izmailovsky court is still considering a similar lawsuit (it is also declared moral damage in the amount of 300 thousand rubles), but the representative of the Ministry of Finance insists in his recall that the fact of causing the ex-Candidate of moral and moral suffering is not proven, and therefore, there is no compensation.
The Constitutional Court recently quite often indicates the possibility of applying compensation in cases where it is impossible to restore the violated right of the candidate, but this mechanism is difficult to work with difficulty, the electoral lawyer Garepin Mitin confirms.
The whole thing, in his opinion, is that this institution is not formalized in any way: for example, the institution of compensation for harm is in private law, but it is not clear what to do if public law is violated. The matter would go much easier if the compensatory mechanisms that the CS speaks of, at least one line were spelled out in the Code of Administrative proceedings, the expert believes.
