After losing immunity, KPRF lawmaker Valery Rashkin files lawsuit against Russia’s State Duma
Veteran Communist Party (KPRF) lawmaker Valery Rashkin has filed a lawsuit against the Russian State Duma and Otari Arshba, the chairman of the State Duma Commission on Issues of Parliamentary Ethics.
Citing KPRF Central Committee Secretary Sergey Obukhov, Interfax reports that Rashkin filed a lawsuit with Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court due to the fact that his lawyers weren’t allowed to attend the meeting of the State Duma on November 25, during which lawmakers voted to remove his parliamentary immunity. Rashkin made a corresponding appeal to Arshba on November 21, but his request was denied.
According to Obukhov, without legal counsel present, Rashkin was unable to “properly exercise his right to defense against the charges brought against him indiscriminately.”
Obukhov also speculated that the court may find some pretext for refusing to accept Rashkin’s claim, “as practice and the bitter experience of representatives of the opposition shows.”
On November 25, the Russian State Duma stripped Valery Rashkin of parliamentary immunity, upholding a request from prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against him for illegal hunting, as well as administrative charges for refusing to take a breathalyzer test. The charges were drawn up back in October, after Saratov police stopped Rashkin for drunk driving and found a butchered elk in the trunk of his car.
The Communist Party faction voted against removing Rashkin’s immunity. The KPRF maintains that the party taking internal disciplinary action would be sufficient.
Though Rashkin has admitted to killing the elk, he maintains that the case against him is political. The lawmaker is one of the harshest critics of the Russian authorities within Communist Party’s leadership. After the State Duma elections in September, Rashkin made public allegations about the falsification of electronic voting results.
