In Dagestan, court rejects lawyer Kadiev's claim for moral compensation

Today, the Lenin District Court of Makhachkala has rejected the claim lodged by the lawyer Rasul Kadiev in demand of compensation for his moral harm caused by the abolition of direct elections. The lawyer said that he would appeal against the rejection.

"The court has announced the resolution part of the judgement without the motivation. The full text of the ruling will be ready on Monday. After studying it, I'll prepare the appeal," Rasul Kadiev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The law that provides the subjects of the Russian Federation with the right to cancel direct elections of their governors was signed by Russian president on April 2; and on April 18 Dagestan abolished the direct election of the head of the republic. On May 13, Rasul Kadiev filed a lawsuit against the republic's Ministry of Finance for compensation of his moral harm suffered as a result of the abolition of direct elections. The consideration of the lawsuit began on May 29.

The today's decision the court to dismiss the claim can be appealed within a month.

The Ministry of Finance of Dagestan acted as the respondent to the suit. Ali Islamov, the Deputy Minister, called Rasul Kadiev's suit nonsense, stressing that "all the amendments relating the elections have been made in accordance with the legislation."

"If you have any questions regarding violation of the legislation, you should have appealed to the Constitutional Court or to the supervisory body - the Prosecutor's Office. If there is no violation of the law, why should anyone compensate any moral harm? It's nonsense. What are the grounds for anyone to sue and recover any amounts for infringement of rights? I think it's nonsense, just a waste of time, money and paper," Ali Islamov said in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

It should be noted here that on May 7 Rasul Kadiev also filed a complaint to the office of the Supreme Court about recognition of the abolition of direct elections invalid, but the court refused to receive the complaint.