"The party has fewer than 50,000 people and has failed to set up 500-man local offices in the majority of Russia's regions, as required by law," the Federal Registration Service said in the original complaint upheld February 16 to close down the party.
SLON was established in 2002 by members of the liberal Yabloko party and is headed by Vyacheslav Igrunov, director of the Institute for Humanitarian and Political Research and a deputy at the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in 1993-2003. It failed to get any seats in the latest parliamentary election.
Last year, the Federal Registration Service warned 16 parties that they would not qualify for registration under a new law because of insufficient membership numbers and would be closed down or relegated to NGOs in 2007. Only four of them have complied, and legal action has been started against the other 12. The Supreme Court has already upheld 10 such complaints.
