The court dismissed Nadezhda Suraeva's lawsuit.

      On September 25, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow issued a ruling on the lawsuit by Kirov resident Nadezhda Suraeva against the party "A Just Russia — For Truth" (SRZP). The case, in which an SRZP candidate in the 2021 State Duma elections is challenging the transfer of the mandate of the stripped-of-powers Vadim Belousov (who headed terror group No. 16 for Udmurtia and Kirov Oblast) to Marina Kim from the Far Eastern group, had been under consideration since the end of February this year.

      Recall that the scandal over the out-of-turn transfer of a mandate to a candidate who has no relation to the territorial group began back in November 2023. At that time, SRZP intended to transfer the vacated mandate of the ex-State Duma deputy Vadim Belousov, convicted in absentia, to Olesya Redkina, who had run for parliament on the list of the same regional group. The matter seemed settled: Redkina, having visited Moscow and published a photo with party leader Sergey Mironov, had already resigned her powers as a regional parliament deputy. But she soon herself came under investigation. In that situation the Central Election Commission (CEC) suspended the transfer of the mandate.

      Almost six months later SRZP, citing that all the other members of the regional group had signed written refusals of the mandate, transferred it to TV presenter Marina Kim from the Far Eastern regional group. Reminder: to transfer deputy "credentials," candidates ahead in the list of the presumed mandate successor must voluntarily and in writing renounce the right to receive the vacant mandate. And the practice of transferring mandates to other regional groups was not widespread.

      In June 2024 the CEC officially transferred the mandate and Kim took the seat in the State Duma, which, in essence, could have gone to one of the Kirov politicians.

      This fact outraged Nadezhda Suraeva and Albert Bikaluk, who, like Redkina—who had dropped out of the race for the mandate—were on the list. Both insisted they had not written statements refusing the mandate and demanded that the authenticity of their signatures be checked.

      Meanwhile the situation was surrounded by unpleasant rumors: at that time party functionaries Dmitry Russkikh and Konstantin Russkikh allegedly promised the federal leadership of the SR to resolve the issue, but in fact supposedly forged the signatures. In the end only Nadezhda Suraeva decided to seek justice from "A Just Russia" and in July the Supreme Court accepted her suit in which she asked to declare the transfer of the mandate to Marina Kim unlawful. However, in December 2024 the Supreme Court dismissed it, stating that the CEC is not obliged to verify statements of refusal.

      Then the CEC itself confirmed that the decision about which candidate will receive the vacant mandate is essentially left to the discretion of the party. And, in general, the CEC is not obliged to check for the presence of written statements of refusal by candidates. Which, in fact, gave rise to the belief that the court’s decision allowed parties to transfer vacant mandates to any candidates, regardless of who was next in line and from which regional group they ran.

      However, this did not cool Nadezhda Suraeva’s ardor and she went to seek the truth in the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow, filing a suit directly against SRZP. But here too the court sided with A Just Russia. Nadezhda Vasilyevna herself is not yet commenting on the decision, citing that she has not read its reasoning.