MOSCOW, March 30 (RAPSI, Alexei Afonsky) – The Moscow City Court upheld a lower court ruling to ban Alexei Navalny’s Party of Progress which experienced problems with registering from taking part in elections, RAPSI reported on Monday from the courtroom.

The party turned to the Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court after the Justice Ministry passed a decision ordering it to hold back from elections. The claim was dismissed in late January, anf the party filed an appeal. 

The decision of the Justice Ministry and the ruling of the Zamoskvoretsky District Court were ungrounded and illegal because they infringe on the party’s rights, a lawyer for the party said during a hearing on Monday.

The requirements set out for the party, which was banned from elections for failing to comply with them, were unjustifiably stringent, he added.

Opposition politician Alexei Navalny, leader of the Party of Progress, finished second in the Moscow mayoral elections in 2013 and runs one of the most popular political blogs. The blog site was banned for promoting unauthorized public protests. He has been given two suspended sentences for embezzlement – five years in the Kirovles case and 3.5 years in the Yves Rocher Vostok case.