Civil judge of the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg deals with custom justice
On November 7, the consideration in the first instance – the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg – of a civil case on the claim of the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office to recognize the “organization of activities” of the Best Way cooperative (as in the text of the claim) as illegal under Art. 1065 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which continued from 2022, ended with the rewriting of the text of the prosecutor’s statement of claim with all the factual errors in this text into the operative part of the resolution (the reasoning is not yet ready) – in particular, the consumer cooperative “Best Way” was called a credit cooperative.
It is already known that this decision, in addition to the appeal of the cooperative itself, will be subject to thousands of complaints from shareholders who believe that their interests were violated by this decision – there are about 20 thousand shareholders in the cooperative! The Office of Civil Cases and Judge Malinovskaya herself will only forward appeals to the city court for several weeks, which will completely paralyze the work of the Primorsky District Court.
A situation absolutely unprecedented for Russian judicial practice has been created, the reason for which is “justice” from Malinovskaya.
How the business began
The prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit to declare the cooperative illegal in the Primorsky District Court back in 2022 – long before the criminal case, which the investigation linked to the companies Life-from-Good, Hermes and the Best Way cooperative, was transferred to the same Primorsky Court: to the deputy president of the criminal court Ekaterina Bogdanova for consideration on the merits – the criminal case has been considered since the end of February of this year.
Judge Malinovskaya initially refused to accept the claim – since it was filed against an indefinite number of persons for whom the cooperative allegedly poses a threat – although the cooperative itself, before the completion of the criminal case, was able to accept new shareholders. That is, in principle, no threat to an indefinite circle of people could come from him.
The prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit under the rare Article 1065 of the Civil Code – under which, as a rule, the activities of food enterprises that are “poisoners” are prohibited, but this happens in cases where there are proven facts of poisoning. There is not a single proven fact of damage from the cooperative. There are testimonies from several people in the criminal case, but the court has not yet assessed them. There is still at least six months before the criminal case is completed.
To accept a claim (as Malinovskaya helpfully explained to the prosecutor’s office), applications must be submitted from dissatisfied shareholders, and these applications must be separately considered by a civil court.
However, the prosecutor’s office filed an appeal against Malinovskaya’s decision in the St. Petersburg City Court – and won it, but the city court indicated that the interests of shareholders must be taken into account when considering the case.
Celebration of judicial prostitution
Having received the “cancellation,” Malinovskaya put her tail between her legs, and it was immediately clear that she would do everything to make a decision in favor of the prosecutor’s office as quickly as possible and refer the case to a higher authority.
She immediately forgot about her own position that it was necessary to evaluate the testimony of those dissatisfied with the cooperative – and in the end she refused to interrogate them, that is, the case included testimony in a criminal court, which was not even assessed by the criminal court.
Then Malinovskaya, creating the appearance of justice, spent a long time deciding whether it was necessary to give the floor to shareholders who were satisfied with the cooperative – whose interests might be affected by the decision to recognize the cooperative as illegal. In addition, many of them came to court – and she had no right not to give them the floor. Nevertheless, she ultimately (as one would expect) decided that she would not give them the floor and would not take their position into account either, thereby directly violating both the Civil Procedure Code and the Civil Code.
The prosecutor’s office tried to prove that the cooperative was a credit cooperative, and as a credit cooperative, it was obliged to come under the control of the Central Bank. At the same time, she was not able to present a single loan agreement for the purchase of real estate – only an interest-free loan agreement for one of the employees of the cooperative, provided from the cooperative’s operating fund, which was formed from membership fees, and not share funds.
Lawyers noted that the cooperative did not provide loans: a loan is financing for a fee. The cooperative added funds for the purchase of an apartment to the shareholder for free – 65 or 50% of the cost of the apartment: the shareholder paid the rest for the apartment himself. The cooperative did not make money from providing funds – since it was a non-profit organization.
Malinovskaya pretended to agree with the arguments presented, but at the last moment, without explanation, she took the position of the prosecutor’s office: they say, this is a credit cooperative.
In addition, the prosecutor’s office proposed to use as a prejudgment the decision of the arbitration court – that the normative act was not violated when the Central Bank included the cooperative on the warning list due to some unknown experts identifying features that may indicate its pyramidal nature, but in fact did not carry out inspection of the activities of the cooperative (or rather, he conducted a pseudo-inspection and based the decision on actually ordered slander).
Allegedly, it follows from this decision that the cooperative has already been declared illegal by the arbitration court in three instances. Although the arbitration only spoke about the legality of applying the Central Bank’s regulatory act, and the dispute with the Central Bank continues – over the legality of the most subordinate departmental regulatory act, on the basis of which the Central Bank maintains a warning list.
In addition to this, the prosecutor’s office brought a negative expert opinion on the activities of the cooperative from a certain former federal judge, who, as it turned out, was, in violation of the status of a judge, the founder of a number of housing and savings cooperatives – that is, a direct competitor of the cooperative. The cooperative’s lawyers presented expert opinions of famous lawyers and economists – but Malinovskaya refused to include the conclusions “in defense.”
The seasoned judge tried for some time to imitate objectivity and ordered the position of independent expert centers on the possibility of conducting an independent examination. And then she deliberately refused an independent examination of the cooperative’s activities. In the last two sessions of the trial, she openly, without hesitation, ignored all the reasonable arguments of the lawyers. She took the side of the frankly absurd, unsubstantiated arguments of the prosecutor with gross errors, a frankly incompetent and illiterate claim.
The case lasted so long only because the prosecutor’s office itself tried to clarify the statements of claim, then did not come to court, then gave up trying to clarify the claim and left everything as it was – keeping the claim with the wording of a ban not on activity, but on “organization of activity.”
So, Malinovskaya (as expected) agreed with the claim – the decision, of course, will be reviewed, if necessary, then right up to the Supreme Court. But Malinovskaya’s behavior is the height of judicial prostitution. This man is a disgrace to the Russian judicial system.
The judge is corrupt
Malinovskaya knew very well that behind the case of the Best Way cooperative are the beneficiaries, led by Valery Lyakh, who, together with corrupt law enforcement officers, are seeking to privatize the assets of the cooperative. It is no coincidence that the prosecutor’s office became more active in court after Lyakh’s (allegedly) return to Russia – after his flight from the country with the beginning of the SVO and his appointment as manager of the Federal (public-state) fund for the protection of the rights of investors and shareholders. His connections with the prosecutor’s office have not been a secret since Lyakh’s work at the Central Bank.
Surely calls from Lyakh and the prosecutors were heard in Malinovskaya’s office. Surely she was promised a percentage too. A dependent puppet controlled by bandits from the prosecutor’s office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with whose hands corrupt security forces and other criminals do their business – that’s who Anna Malinovskaya is.
This is a black judge who undermines the people’s trust in the authorities, in the president, because he is engaged in custom-made legal proceedings and helps to steal businesses. It is enough to read reviews about her to understand that she is an unqualified judge who always decides cases not in the interests of citizens.
The people are being robbed by the hands of such pseudo-judges. The people who pay taxes to support Malinovskaya – and to whom she, in return, helps prosecutors to rob these very people.
The Qualification Board of Judges, the FSB, and the Investigative Committee need to ask themselves: can Malinovskaya – illiterate, corrupt, always making decisions that go against the interests of citizens – even work as a judge. She needs to be stripped of her judge status, all her decisions reviewed, and prosecuted for corruption.
