A family of six has lived under constant threat of losing their only home for 12 years despite having acquired the apartment legally and a Constitutional Court's ruling in favor of bona fide purchasers.

The Odnodvortsevs had bought an apartment in Moscow in 2004. Later the seller was convicted for documentation fraud and obtaining the property illegally. The courts agreed that the Odnodvortsevs had no way of knowing about the seller's offence. Yet, in 2008 a district court in Moscow had ordered to take the property aay from the purchasers and evict them from the apartment.

In 2017, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued a judgment on a similar case (also represented by the Institute). According to the decision, the property of bona fide purchasers must not be taken away. However, the Odnodvorstevs' judicial battle continued, as the lower courts declined the direct application of the Constitutional Court's judgement from the other case.

The Institute filed a complaint representing the Odnodvortsevs' interests at the Constitutional Court in Fall 2019. On June 26, 2020 the Court ruled to satisfy Odnodvortsevs' complaint.

Three applicants, Yevgeniya Shasheva, Elizaveta Mykhailova and Alisa Meissner, were born to parents exiled to the GULAG system under Stalin's rule. Before the arrests, all three families resided in Moscow.

All three women could not return to their parents' home city – not after the end of Stalin's regime, not after their family members were rehabilitated, not after the Russian Federation adopted the Federal Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression. De jure, the law demanded those exiled and their children be allowed to return to the same cities and towns in which they had lived before. Local governments are obliged to provide them with new homes. Yet, local measures undertaken by regional authorities (e.g. in Moscow) have de facto prevented this from happening.

The Institute filed three complaints to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in early 2019. On December 10 the same year, the Court pronounced the legal norms that prevented the GULAG children from returning to Moscow and other regions to be unconstitutional.

Anastasia Bryukhanova serves as a municipal deputy in a Moscow city district. During Summer 2019, she aimed to run for office in the Moscow Regional Parliament (Moscow Duma). To participate in the elections, potential candidates had to collect signatures of at least 3% of their district's population in support of their candidacy. After Bryukhanova submitted the signatures and attached all the necessary documentation, her application was denied by the District Election Commission (DEC).

Due to tight deadlines provided by the legislation, Bryukhanova and other ex-candidates had to choose between appealing the DEC's decision to the Central Election Commission (CEC) or appealing it to the court. The Institute for Law and Public Policy filed a complaint in Bryukhanova's name to the Constitutional Court of Russian Federation in Fall 2019.

In March 2020, the Court has announced its judgment:

· the 'either CEC, or court' rule that violated Bryukhanova's right to judicial protection was found unconstitutional

· the MRP's election results of Fall 2019 will not be reversed.

A picket is a single public event that does not require approval from the authorities. In Russia, there is a practice of qualifying picket lines and series of pickets as mass public events, for which a notification is required. Because of this, picketers are fined for holding an unauthorized event.The Institute's lawyers filed complaints to the Constitutional Court of Russia and the ECHR on behalf of Law professor Ilya Shablinsky and eco-activist Iryna Nikiforova, who were fined for holding pickets.

During Winter 2020, Nikiforova protested against the construction of an incinerator plant in Kazan. She called on people through the social network to join the protest by holding a series of single pickets. All the pickets were held without violations: residents took turns coming with a poster to the building of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers. However, 20 days after the end of the pickets, Nikiforova was brought to court for organizing an uncoordinated mass public event.

On May 30, 2020, Shablinsky went to the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Main Department in Moscow for a single picket to protest a famous blogger's arrest. Almost immediately, the police detained him. The court fined Shablinsky for participating in a mass uncoordinated event since other single pickets were held near the building on the same day.

On May 19, 2021, the RCC has ruled in favor of Iryna Nikiforova's complaint. Shablinsky's case in ECHR is still under review.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare genetic disease. The disease has a progressive nature: weakness begins with the muscles on the legs and eventually reaches the muscles responsible for swallowing and breathing. Among medication for the SMA treatment is Spinraza (Nusinersen). According to the current legislation, the SMA treatment should be financed from the regional budget. Due to gaps in legislation and by-laws regional authorities often shy away from buying expensive drugs for patients with SMA. Families of children with SMA often successfully challenge such refusals in court but at the same time lose valuable time. ILPP's lawyers defend the right of children with SMA to receive the medication on a regular basis.

All of our applicants have received their medication.

Rasih Akhmetvaliyev is an artist whose paintings are exhibited in Russia and abroad. His first exhibitions were held in 1970. According to the laws of the USSR, the length of service had to be counted from this moment, regardless of the payment of insurance premiums and the availability of employment contracts. But when Akhmetvaliyev retired, the management of the State Pension Fund refused to include in the artist's work experience the periods of creative activity from 1970 to 1972 and for 1976. The Fund explained its decision by the fact that during these periods Akhmetvaliyev worked without contracts and did not pay contributions. The courts agreed with the Found's position, referring to the norms adopted after the collapse of the USSR. As a result, the applicant's pension has been significantly reduced.

In April 2021, the Institute's lawyers filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court in the interests of Rasikh Akhmetvaliyev. In the complaint we challenge the provisions that cancel the citizens' pension rights acquired in accordance with the previously existing legislation. As the complaint's author, Vitaly Isakov, notes: "In the 1990s, laws were passed that imposed on people the duty to provide new legal facts in their lives. The General Courts refuse to award our applicant an increased pension, stating that he did not pay insurance premiums in certain periods. At the same time, in the USSR, the payment of such insurance premiums was not required. In this complaint we want to convey a simple idea – if a person has certain social rights, then they cannot be canceled, just as it is impossible to burden a person with such obligations that he cannot fulfill to realize these rights".

In April 2021, Russian Constitutional Court has registered Akhmetvaliev's complaint.

The Center is an organization that aided representatives of indigenous peoples. It was founded in 2000. It has a special status and accreditation with the agencies and structures of the UN, the UNESCO, the UNEP and other international organizations. Rodion Sulyandziga, the Center's Board Chairman, is a current member of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Since 2014 the organization and personally Rodion Sulyandziga have been under pressure from the state in connection with the human rights activities of the Center. In November 2019 the Center was liquidated in connection with a lawsuit by the Ministry of Justice on formal grounds. Subsequently, the Ministry of Justice several times refused to make changes to the Center's documentation. Attempts to appeal the actions of the Ministry of Justice in court were impossible because the liquidation was already completed.

In April 2021, ECtHR has registered the Center's complaint.

Due to the City Government Decree, residents of St. Petersburg who do not have permanent registration at their place of residence and whose last registration was not in St. Petersburg, cannot receive social support measures in a timely and regular manner. To solve this problem the lawyers of the Institute together with the Nochlezhka charity organization prepared a request to the Authorized Court of St. Petersburg. On September 18, 2020, the request was submitted by a group of municipal deputies.

On March 30, 2021, the Court has ruled to satisfy the request. On April 7 the first homeless people who hadn't had a permanent registration got social support.

In April 2019, Yevgeny Kim, was released from a penal colony where he was serving a sentence under an «extremist» article for studying prohibited works. Upon his release, Kim learnt that he has been stripped of Russian citizenship – the only citizenship he ever had. Kim is a native of the Karakalpak ASSR (the territory of Uzbekistan) but after the collapse of the USSR he lived in Russia. Following his release, he was brought to court for violating the rules of stay in Russia and was sentenced to a fine and expulsion from the country.

Kim was placed in a temporary detention center for foreign citizens in Khabarovsk. After almost two years since his release from the colony, he continues to be in the detention center for foreign citizens. Сonditions there are no better than in a pre-trial detention center. There is no place to expel him from Russia, since he does not have and did not have the citizenship of another country. The complaint on behalf of Yevgeny Kim was filed with the Constitutional Court of Russia. On March 12, 2021, the Constitutional Court published the Ruling No. 378-O/2021 in favor of the complaint. The Ruling also outlines the new rules for weighting stateless' persons cases.

In March 2021, Russian Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of Kim.

In June 2019, lawyer Maria Eismont was not allowed to walk into a police department to aid people detained at a peaceful rally. The police officers referred to the 'Fortress Plan' that allows them to forbid any entrances to the building. Officialy, such plans can only be installed in case of a terrorist attack threat. In July 2020, Eismont encountered the same problem. She noticed that both times, the entrance ban was only applied to lawyers, while other visitors freely passed in and out of the building.

The head of judicial practice Alexander Maltsev, senior lawyer Alexander Brester and lawyer Vladislav Chepelev defend the rights of lawyer Maria Eismont and her clients in several lawsuits.

The case is still open.

Evgenia Dyomina, Anna Nikitina and Yuri Pavlov are residents of St. Petersburg. All three lost their permanent homes under different circumstances but continue to live in the city. The city administration and the St. Petersburg courts refuse to register them and dozens of other citizens as those in need of housing.

The city's courts rely on the regional norm which requires citizens to live in St. Petersburg for at least 10 years to register for housing. However, the city courts consider that the fact of residence in St. Petersburg is confirmed only by permanent registration in the city. Thus, the law enforcement practice revived the Soviet version of registration rules, which was declared unconstitutional back in the 1990s.

The Institute filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court in the interests of Dyomina, Nikitina and Pavlov. The complaint challenges the regional norm and the norm of the Russian Civil Procedure Code, which regulates the admissibility of evidence in such cases. On March 5, 2021, the Constitutional Court registered the complaint.

In March 2021, Russian Constitutional Court has registered the complaint.

Marina Khludova had been teaching at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University for 27 years. In the 2017-2018 academic year, she was not given an individual teacher's work plan. In agreement with the management, she was engaged only in out-of-class work: she did research, writing, and conference preparations. In the middle of the school year, the University stopped paying her salary, so Marina suspended her work after completing all the tasks.

Trying to get paid for the work done, Khludova appealed to court and found out that the employer retrospectively issued an order to change her place of work from one classroom to another. She did not know about this order and continued to work at the old place. Referring to the order, the courts refused to satisfy Marina's claims, since formally she was not at the workplace for almost several months. The complaint in the interests of Marina Khludova to the Russian Constitutional Court was prepared by the Institute's lawyer Vladislav Chepelev.

In February 2021, Russian Constitutional Court has registered the complaint.

Boris Tupitsyn is a working pensioner. His old-age insurance pension has not been recalculated since 2016, despite the indexation of the value of one pension coefficient in 2017 and 2018. The Pension Fund and courts refused to recalculate his pension on the basis of Article 26.1 of Federal Law No. 400 of 28 December 2013 "On Insurance Pensions", although the annual increase in the value of the pension coefficient should automatically entail recalculation of the pension. This law establishes that pensions and recalculation payments are not indexed for working pensioners.

Tupitsyn asks to declare unconstitutional Part 1 of Article 26.1 of the Federal Law "On Insurance Pensions", which allows pensions and benefits to be non-indexed for working pensioners. In our opinion, this provision is inconsistent with social amendments to the Constitution which provides the indexation of pensions for all citizens without exception and establishes the requirement to respect the "man of labor".

A complaint on behalf of Boris Tupitsyn to the Russian Constitutional Court has been prepared by the Institute's lawyers Vladislav Chepelev and Polina Kurakina.

In July 2021, Russian Constitutional Court has released its ruling on the case.

Eva Repina came to Russia in 2017. In 2019, her temporary residence permit (issued for three years) was revoked without explanation and she was banned from entering Russia until 2038. Repina did not know that the deadline for appealing against the decision to revoke her permit expired 3 days after she had received notification. She filed her objection in 9 days. The courts dismissed her claims because she missed the deadline.

Eva asks to declare unconstitutional Part 4 of Article 7 of the Federal Law "On the Legal Status of Foreign Nationals in the Russian Federation", which establishes an unreasonably short time for an appeal of a decision to annul a temporary residence permit. She also made a formal complaint about not getting an opportunity to learn the reasons for the decision.

A complaint on behalf of Eva Repina to the Constitutional Court of Russia was prepared by Vadim Danshov, a lawyer of the Institute.

The Institute is handling the case in partnership with the Civic Assistance Committee.

On 15 January 2021 the Constitutional Court of Russia registered the complaint on behalf of Eva Repina.

Mount Kushtau in the Republic of Bashkortostan is a unique natural site. Two dozen species of red-listed animals live in its territory. It is one of the four ancient shikhan mountains in the Republic, which are suitable for limestone mining. Only three of them remained by now: one of them, Shakhtau, was destroyed because of mining by the Bashkir Soda Company. In 2018, the same company received permission to mine Kushtau. In May 2020, an order from the Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Bashkortostan amended the forestry regulations to make it possible to cut down forests on Mount Kushtau and extract minerals.

Residents rose up to defend the shikhan: they launched a petition, organised protests that collected thousands of people, lined the road in a human chain, set up a tent camp at the foot of the mountain and organized shifts. In summer 2020, the Republic's authorities promised not to use Kushtau for limestone mining and officially declared it natural heritage. However, regional forestry regulations have retained the possibility of extracting minerals from Kushtau. It means that the mountain is still in danger.

Alexander Maltsev, Head of the Institute's litigation practice, and Vadim Danshov, Institute's lawyer, helped residents to prepare a class action lawsuit to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Bashkiria that challenged the provisions of the Ministry of Agriculture's order. Aidar Mullanurov, managing partner of Barrister Agency, is representing the lawsuit at the court sessions.

On 23 March 2021, the Supreme Court of Bashkiria dismissed the case.

Tunkinsky National Park is in the valley of the Irkut River in Buryatia. There are also fourteen rural settlements within the park that make up the Tunkinsky district.

The villagers are at risk of being left without social infrastructure: schools, kindergartens, hospitals etc. Tunkinsky district cannot recognize its ownership of the land under these buildings because it is the territory of a park, which belongs to the Russian Federation. New social infrastructure facilities are recognized as unauthorized constructions, and the district administration cannot commission them. Each time, the municipality must defend the ownership of the buildings in courts.

On behalf of the residents of the Tunkinsky district, lawyers of the Institute filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court of Russia. The complaint was authored by Vladislav Chepelev, Institute's lawyer. Unfortunately, the Court ruled the complaint inadmissible.

At the end of December 2020, the Federal Law "On Specially Protected Natural Territories" was amended. Article 3 was amended with the following sentences: "Lands and land plots within the boundaries of populated areas included in specially protected natural territories refer to the lands of populated areas. The use of lands and land plots of other categories included in the specially protected natural territories is limited considering the need to protect the natural complexes of the specially protected natural territories from unfavorable anthropogenic impacts".

In January 2021, the authorities announced that the current Statute of the Tunkinski National Park was being amended about the composition and description of the boundaries of its functional areas, the parameters of permitted construction and reconstruction of capital construction projects, as well as the list of prohibited activities. Officials promise that once the boundaries of settlements are defined and the latter are attributed to a certain functional zone, people will have the opportunity to privatize real estate.

In December 2020, Russian State Duma has issued legislation solving the problem.

In 2019, municipal deputy Yulia Galyamina decided to run for the Moscow City Duma. Her campaign managed to collect 5,713 signatures to register Galyamina as a candidate. However, the district election commission declared more than 10 percent of the signatures in support of Galiamina invalid or unreliable and refused registration. According to the case materials, Precinct Election Commission (PEC) experts had checked signatures using a closed database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - they entered signature data with mistakes, mixed up the names of signatories, while the database itself contained errors in passport data and addresses.

Galyamina tried to challenge the results of the signature verification at higher electoral commissions and in court. After further examinations, she was able to challenge the "invalidity and unreliability" of some of the signatures, but this was not enough: 249 signatures were still missing.

Institute's lawyers are defending Yulia Galiamina's right to be elected and appealing against its unlawful restriction to the European Court of Human Rights. The author of the complaint is Vitaliy Isakov, a lawyer of the Institute.

On 23 December 2020, Yulia Galiamina was charged under Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for repeated violation of the established procedure for organizing or holding meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches, or pickets and sentenced to two years of suspended imprisonment. She will not be able to teach or be elected for another eight years after serving her sentence. Read more about the application of Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code in Maria Eismont's interview (in Russian) on the Academy website.

The Community of the Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Derzhavnaya in the city of Tver (Tver Community) is a small Orthodox church. In 1996 the members of the community received an abandoned boiler-room building from the administration of Tver for free use. By 2002 the members of the Community had restored the building at their own expense, turning it into the church of the Russian New Martyrs, and registered it as a religious building. However, in 2016 the free use agreement for the building expired. At first, the city administration agreed to extend the contract, but one month later they changed their decision and demanded the Tver Community to leave the premises without explanation. The Community tried to return the building in court, but the court sided with the administration and explained their decision by the law "On transfer of state or municipally owned religious property to religious organizations". According to the law, only a building constructed for that particular purpose may be used for religious activities. In April 2019, the Tver Community was evicted from the premises. The building was subsequently transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.

In early 2020, the Institute's lawyers filed a complaint with the Russian Constitutional Court. The case was led by Ilya Shablinsky (Institute expert), Olga Podoplelova (Institute lawyer until 2019) and Grigory Vaipan (Head of the Institute's Litigation until 2020). After the complaint was accepted for consideration, it was led by Alexander Maltsev, Head of the Institute's Litigation.

On 17 November 2020, the Court held that the constitutional rights of the Church of Tver had been violated and that it was entitled to compensation to build a new church.

As part of the pre-trial investigation, no one can be held in custody for more than a year (longer than 18 months if they are suspected in a serious or particularly serious crime). However, Konstantin Remizov, accused of an economic crime, was held in custody beyond these terms due to a legal loophole in the mechanism of familiarisation with the materials of the criminal case. Once they are presented, investigative actions could be resumed and the period of detention is extended beyond the permitted time limit. Investigative bodies presented Remizov with materials for familiarisation, but then suspended the familiarisation and continued the investigation, presented new charges and again issued materials for familiarisation.

As a result, Remizov spent a total of more than two years in pre-trial detention.

The lawyers of the Institute defended the rights of Konstantin Remizov and appealed to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation the provisions of Parts 6 and 7 of Article 109, Part 4 of Article 217 and Part 1 of Article 219 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation that allow investigators to keep people in pre-trial detention indefinitely. The author of the complaint is Alexander Brester, Senior Lawyer at the Institute.

On 29 October 2020, the Russian Constitutional Court adopted a ruling on the case of Konstantin Remizov in which it reiterated that it is unacceptable to hold a person in pre-trial detention over time limits through the mechanism of familiarisation with the case.

With the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Moscow authorities adopted a series of regulations to establish a self-isolation regime. Muscovites were fined for walking in parks during the period of restrictions or simply for leaving their homes after returning from abroad.

Soon, violators of the self-isolation regime in the capital began to be fined in absentia. If a Muscovite fell ill and was quarantined, they were obliged to install a mobile application called Social Monitoring. This app monitors geodata of a sick person and allows them to be held administratively liable in a simplified procedure for violating the self-isolation regime. This system shifts the burden of proof entirely onto citizens: first they receive a fine - and only after that they can challenge it in court if they want to prove their innocence.

In the first two months of the app's operation, 54,000 fines were issued with a total of more than RUB 216 million. About 30 percent of the app's users received receipts, some of them even more than once.

Municipal deputy Denis Shenderovich and journalist Alexei Obukhov challenged the legality of "coronavirus" decrees issued by the Mayor of Moscow, as well as parts 2-4 of Article 3.18.1 and part 1.1 of Article 16.6 of the Moscow Administrative Code. These acts violated rights and freedoms of the Muscovites and, contrary to the principle of presumption of innocence, allowed people to be held administratively liable in a simplified procedure without proof of guilt.

Lawyer of the Institute Vitaly Isakov represents Denis Shenderovich and Alexei Obukhov in three trials.

On 26 October 2020, the First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction dismissed the private complaints of Denis Shenderovich and Alexei Obukhov.

In 1957, the USSR experienced its first radiation accident at the Mayak Chemical Combine in Ozyorsk (formerly Chelyabinsk-40). Residents of nearby towns and villages had been exposed to radiation for years before the accident: waste from the chemical plant was discharged into the Techa river flowing near the settlements, while gases and aerosols containing radioiodine were released into the atmosphere.

The state provided social benefits to those residents who were evacuated from the contaminated areas. However, many of them voluntarily abandoned their homes before the evacuation. This was the case in the family of Lyubov Pokazhnyeva: a year before the accident, her parents decided to move to another village. However, Lyubov lived near the Techa River for the first two years of her life and suffered from radioactive exposure during that time. Since 2018, she has been trying to get social benefits. However, the state refuses to recognise her entitlement to them. Thus, those who voluntarily left places of radiation contamination cannot receive support from the state, even though they were actually affected by radiation.

To protect Lyubov Pokazhnyeva's rights to a favourable environment and to receive social support measures, the Institute's lawyers filed a complaint with the Russian Constitutional Court. The author of the complaint is Vadim Danshov. However, the Court issued a negative ruling on the case.

On 29 September 2020, the Constitutional Court of Russia adopted a negative ruling on the complaint.