Constitutional Court will review the complaint of Jankauskas against the Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights’

On November 9, the online newspaper ‘Fontanka’ announced that the Constitutional Court (CC) will review the complaint of Konstantin Jankauskas against the Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights’.

Jankauskas challenges the provision under which a citizen cannot run as a candidate, if he is under house arrest. ‘The investigator has forbidden me to leave the location of house arrest in order to personally submit application documents for the nomination of candidacy; the election commission returned the documents submitted by my wife as a proxy. Such an amazing legal conflict occurred due to the inaccurate wording of the Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights’ and the Electoral Code of Moscow’- the publication quoted the politician.

Konstantin Jankauskas – the councilor of Zyuzin district, one of the founders of 'Party 5th of December' and a supporter of Alexei Navalny. In 2014, Jankauskas decided to run for the Moscow City Duma. However, on the day the election campaign was launched, the politician was put under house arrest. Charges were brought against him for misappropriation of 10 million rubles, obtained from Navalny supporters through Internet.

Jankauskas was precluded from submitting application documents to the election commission, although formally persons suspected of crimes are not prohibited doing that. If a citizen is ill or under remand, his proxy has the right to submit documents to election commission. However there are no provisions in regard to persons who find themselves under house arrest, as the newspaper clarified. In fact, it is a ‘legal limbo’, assured the complainant. He petitioned the Constitutional Court for declaring the contested provisions unconstitutional. According to Jankauskas, these norms violate the ‘principle of legal certainty’ and ‘the principle of equality of citizens’.