Tallinn mayor turns to court to fight party financing watchdog injunction

Tallinn Mayor Taavi Aas (Centre) will submit to the injunction of the Supervisory Committee on Party Financing (ERJK) and return over €1,000 to the city of Tallinn, but will at the same time contest the injunction. Aas turned to the Tallinn administrative court on Wednesday.
The ERJK on 4 June issued an injunction according to which Aas has to return €1,011 and 84 cents to the city of Tallinn. The committee found that an article titled "Candidate revealed: Tallinn mayor could be Taavi Aas" published in Stolitsa in May 2017 constitutes a forbidden donation from the city of Tallinn to a mayoral candidate at the time, Taavi Aas.
Aas on Wednesday turned to the Tallinn administrative court regarding the injunction of the ERJK in order to get a legal opinion whether or not the article was an ordered political advertisement and a forbidden donation.
Aas called the committee and in particular its chairman, Ardo Ojasalu biased and subjective in his case, saying about Ojasalu that he had wanted to see Aas "behind bars before any kind of investigation had started."
Aas said that he will submit to the injunction. "I'm law-abiding citizen, but I'll of course fight for my rights in court," he said.
According to the mayor, the injunction is wrongful and has to be repealed. "I didn't order the Stolitsa article, it was put together based on materials published in the media earlier," Aas said. "To be honest, I didn't have any kind of need for the alleged advertising article five months before the elections, because as the person who announced their candidacy for the position of Tallinn mayor first, the interest and coverage of the entire Estonian media concerning me was already exceptional at that time."
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS