On 27 October, 2020, a meeting of the appeal instance in the case of the liquidation of the Interregional human rights organization “Man and Law” was held in Nizhny Novgorod. The previous court session, on 13 October, was postponed — the court granted the request to postpone the process due to the fact that the chairwoman of the organization Irina Protasova was on sick leave. The interests of the organization were represented in court by the co-chairman of “Man and Law” Sergei Poduzov and the lawyer of the organization Vladimir Protasov with the support of employees of the “Public Verdict” Foundation.
The initiator of the claim for liquidation of interregional non-governmental human rights organization “Man and Law” was the Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in Mari El Republic on the results of inspection of activity of the organization.
However, back in July 2020, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mari El refused the Mari Ministry of Justice to satisfy the claim, but recognized all violations identified by the Ministry of Justice during the inspection as legitimate.
In response, human rights defenders filed an appeal, as the court had not checked and had not given a legal assessment of the evidence provided by the organization “Man and Law” and its representatives.
In turn, the Ministry of Justice of Mari El Republic also filed an appeal demanding the liquidation of the human rights organization “Man and Law”.