The liberal Yabloko party filed an appeal with Russia’s Supreme Court on Friday, challenging a ruling to cancel the registration of the party’s federal slate of candidates for next month’s State Duma elections.
The Supreme Court accepted the appeal and scheduled a hearing for Monday, Aug. 17, at 10 a.m. Moscow time.
“We’ll prove that the truth is on our side and on the side of the people who support us,” Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov told reporters outside the courthouse after he and his party submitted the appeal.
Last week, the Supreme Court disqualified Yabloko from parliamentary elections in September for copyright violations during campaign activity and for breaking campaign finance laws by allegedly accepting funding from abroad.
That ruling removes Russia’s oldest liberal party — and what was the only registered party campaigning on a pro-peace platform — from the nationwide party-list ballot. Yabloko was given five days to appeal the decision.
