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Opposition to challenge rallies law at Constitutional Court

Opposition activists will continue to delay the adoption of certain lawbills by introducing numerous amendments
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, June 7 (Itar-Tass) — The parliamentary Opposition confirmed its intention to challenge the rallies law at the Constitutional Court if it comes into force. Lawmaker Gennady Gudkov /A Just Russia faction/ said at a news conference on Thursday that the Opposition would complain to the Court about numerous violations of the procedure during the passage of the document.

He did not rule out that the Opposition might call for a referendum to rescind the law.

Opposition activists will continue to delay the adoption of certain lawbills by introducing numerous amendments, as happened on June 5 when the rallies law was put up for voting. "The work-by-rule strike" method will be applied in the future. "We now have a computer program that generalizes amendments to laws; there'll be many of them," the lawmaker said

His colleague from the same faction Ilya Ponomaryov believes the Opposition found "symmetric answers" to the law.

"Henceforth, we'll be calling for not participating in rallies: "don't come to rallies, don't bring your friends, don't unfold slogans," he said in comments on the provision to hold citizens responsible for calls for participating in actions.

Other Opposition representatives also confirmed the intention to go ahead with a protext action on June 12, regardless of Town Hall's decision.

"If the authorities do not coordinate with us the March of Millions, we'll hold it in the format of a public event, when does not require coordination, as they told us on May 6, when a similar action was held by United People’s Front," spokeswoman for Left Front Anastasia Udaltsova said.

For his part, Ilya Yashin, one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, assured journalists that "the March" would take place in any weather, in this or that format, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations with Moscow Town Hall.

"The main objective of the upcoming action on June 12 is to form a sort of Opposition headquarters and bring forward a clear program," Ponomaryov said.

Moscow Town Hall is to make the final decision on coordinating the Opposition's action on Friday.

Initially, the organizers of the March of Millions wanted to stage a march from Tverskaya Square to Borovitskaya Square and rally there. But Town Hall rejected the route. For their part, the organizers rejected the Moscow authorities' suggestion that they walk from Frunzenskaya Embankment to the Andreyevsky bridge, as they had insisted on a venue within the Sadovoy Koltso area /central Moscow/.

On June 5, the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament approved the law that hiked fines for violations during rallies to 300,000 roubles for citizens.