Judge of the Moscow City Court
Carrying out political repression using her official position.
On October 14, 2019, Judge Sharapova upheld the sentence of Konstantin Kotov, who was sentenced to four years in a penal colony under Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. On September 5, a judge of the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow, Stanislav Minin, sentenced 34-year-old IT-developer Konstantin Kotov to four years in prison for taking part in four unauthorized but peaceful protests and writing a Facebook post calling to participate in a rally on Trubnaya Square in support of independent candidates running for the Moscow City Duma. The judge found Kotov guilty under “Dadin article” (212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: repeated violation of the rules for holding pickets and rallies). Thus, Kotov received 4 years in prison for four protests, that is, a year for each one.
Kotov became the second convict in this article after opposition activist Ildar Dadin. Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is applied if a citizen gets at least three administrative arrests or fines in six months under for violation of the procedure for public assemblies. A citizen may go to prison for already the fourth violation even if this violation was not getting official permission to protest. In 2017, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation determined the interpretation of Art. 212.1 of the Criminal Code. The Decree of the Constitutional Court said that criminal liability under this norm applies only for actions that have harmed health, property or created a real threat of causing this harm. Neither of these applied to Konstantin Kotov.