Astrakhan court reinstates dismissed TEC member as school principal

The Kirov District Court of Astrakhan has restored Nadezhda Gogoleva, Director of School No. 74 and a member of the Territorial Election Commission (TEC) with a decisive vote from the "Spravedlivaya Rossiya" (Fair Russia), in her position. Her employers could not cite any reason at the trial, why the woman had been fired.

Today, Judge Liudmila Mitkova decided in favour of Gogoleva. "By the decision of the court, Nadezhda Gogoleva was restored at her work," an employee of the Kirov District Court told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, but refused to disclose details of the trial, as the correspondent is not representing any of the parties of the proceedings.

According to Ms Gogoleva, the court ordered the Mayoralty of Astrakhan and the Committee for Education and Sciences to jointly compensate her moral harm amounting to 10,000 roubles.

The woman has added that she had been fired without reason for two times already and both times the court had restored her rights.

Nadezhda Gogoleva said that representatives of her employers - the Committee for Education and Sciences and the Mayoralty of Astrakhan - tried to explain her dismissal by non-observance of the sick leave by her. They also stated that a member of the TEC with a decisive vote preserves employment guarantees only during the period of the election campaign.

"I didn't break the sick leave regime; and presented the respective confirmations, which were taken into account by the court. As to the second argument, I passed over to the court the official response to my request, signed by Leonid Ivlev, Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, and saying that the guarantees for preservation of the workplace, provided by the state to TEC members with a decisive vote, cover the entire term of office, that is five years. Therefore, the employer had no right to dismiss me," she said.