Putin orders promotion for judge who dismissed Navalny’s lawsuits against prison staff

A judge who threw out cases brought by late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny against prison staff he alleged were responsible for abusing him in captivity has been promoted, independent media outlet Dovod reported on Monday.

A decree signed by Vladimir Putin on Friday promoted Kirill Nikiforov to the Vladimir Regional Court. Nikiforov had previously been a judge in the city of Kovrov in central Russia’s Vladimir region where Navalny was serving his prison sentence until he was transferred to an Arctic prison last year where he subsequently died.

While working at the Kovrov City Court, Nikiforov had dismissed multiple lawsuits submitted by Navalny challenging the conditions of his detention, which included being placed in a punishment cell for long periods for the most minor of infractions, Dovod wrote.

In addition to throwing out each of Navalny’s lawsuits, Kovrov repeatedly fined local residents who criticised the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine for “discrediting the Russian military” under newly introduced wartime censorship laws.

In March, Nikiforov was added to a list of 33 individuals and two entities linked to Navalny’s death and personally sanctioned by the European Union, with former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell calling Navalny’s “slow killing by the Kremlin regime … a stark reminder of its utter disregard for human life”.

In a similar case, Oksana Demyasheva, a judge who sentenced St. Petersburg artist and anti-war activist Sasha Skochilenko to seven years in prison for replacing supermarket price tags with messages critical of the war in Ukraine, was recommended for a promotion in November 2023.