In a stiff rebuke of authorities’ efforts to sideline opposition parties, the European Court of Human Rights has declared Russia’s law on political parties draconian and ruled that the 2007 dissolution of the opposition Republican Party was unjustified. Party leader Vladimir Ryzhkov called the ruling a “great precedent” and vowed to use it to register a new opposition party to run in State Duma elections in December and, perhaps, challenge the law in the Constitutional […]