Posts Tagged ‘medvedev’
Lawlessness Unlimited
Despite the Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to combat legal nihilism, there is little or no evidence on the ground of a change in support for the rule of law in Russia, a new study has found. Russia fared the worst of its BRIC peers (Brazil, India And China) when it came to upholding the principle of separation of powers and the observance of fundamental human rights, according to the Rule of Law Index report released on Monday.
“The country shows serious deficiencies in checks and balances among the different branches of government (ranking 55th), leading to an institutional environment characterized by corruption, impunity, and political interference,” said the report, which was prepared by the World Justice Project and funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “Violations against some fundamental rights, such as freedom of opinion, freedom of association, and arbitrary interference of privacy are areas of concern.”
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Congress goes after Russian officials for human rights violations
President Barack Obama is set to meet with Russian President Dmitri Medvdev on May 26 in France on the sidelines of the G-8 meetings. In advance of that meeting, Congress has unveiled a new bill to force the administration to sanction Russian officials for human rights violations.
“One of the core foreign policy objectives when we came into office was the Russia reset,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on a conference call on Friday. “It has been one of the most productive relationships for the United States in terms of the signing and ratification of the New START treaty, cooperation on nuclear security, cooperation with regard to Iran sanctions and nonproliferation generally, the northern distribution network into Afghanistan that supports our effort there, and our discussions with Russia about expanding trade ties and their interest in joining the WTO, as well as Russia’s increased cooperation with NATO that was manifested by the NATO-Russia meetings in Lisbon.”
But Rhodes didn’t mention what most in Congress see as Russia’s backsliding on issues of democracy, freedom of the press, and human rights. A large group of senators introduced a bill on Thursday afternoon that they hope will force the administration to address this issue. Called the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011, it is named after the anti-corruption lawyer who was tortured and died in a Russian prison in 2009. The bill targets his captors as well as any other Russian officials “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of human rights.”
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Panels probe Yukos and Magnitsky cases
The cases of Yukos and Magnitsky came into the public focus again over the week as experts of the European Court of Human Rights discussed the trials of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and Russia’s Prosecutor-General probed the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. And a panel at the Russian president’s Human Rights Commission is currently working on a report to shed more light on these high-profile cases.
According to a report published by the European Court of Human Rights, the trial against former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky was not politically motivated.
In 2005 Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion. In spring 2009 they faced another trial on charges of stealing oil and money-laundering. In December 2010, they were sentenced to 13.5 years in prison but the term was cut by one year later. In accordance with the court’s final sentence, the two will get out of prison in 2016.
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Medvedev Makes Court Comeback
Judging by the pre-election activities of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev recently, Putin is enjoying a firm lead. But Medvedev has staged a nice comeback in the past two months — mostly in Moscow courtrooms.
The first hint came in April, when two neo-Nazis, Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis, were given severe prison terms for killing human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.
On Sunday, state-controlled NTV television aired an amazingly balanced report on Khodorkovsky, giving him a nationwide platform to maintain his innocence and to announce his plans to file for parole.
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Interview of Hermitage Capital Investment Fund head William Browder on the case of Sergey Magnitsky and its aftereffects for the Russian economy
WPS: What the Papers Say
Vladimir Putin has failed to justify the hopes of investors on the establishment of clear rules of the game; he has created a terrible and destructive class of nomenclature oligarchy.
The case of the Hermitage Capital Investment Fund and the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky in a preliminary detention cell are similar to the case of YuKOS as viewed in terms of public response. Below is an interview of William Browder, head of Hermitage Capital.
Q. – We would like to set the record straight regarding the exposing videos and the freezing of certain personal bank accounts of Russian officials by the Prosecutor’s Office in Switzerland. Did Hermitage initiate those actions, and why were they launched?
A. – It was Hermitage Capital lawyers that filed an appeal to the prosecutor in Switzerland, and that appeal initiated the criminal investigation of money laundering of some Russian officials and members of their families – I believe it speaks for itself. “The Untouchables”, a film uploaded at youtube.com and released by friends and colleagues of Magnitsky, highlights in detail information of the enrichment by millions of dollars of the families of those officials, their real estate property abroad, and their personal bank accounts in Switzerland. The Swiss authorities have already launched a criminal case based on that information.
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In Russia, Prisons for Police Thrive
New York Times
NIZHNY TAIGIL, Russia — Like a scene from a felon’s daydream, all the inmates at a prison compound here in western Russia — some 2,000 of them — are former policemen, prosecutors, tax inspectors, customs agents and judges.
Most of the day, they mill about, glum-faced, dressed in prison clothes. The only visible hints of the policemen’s former employment are the occasional buzz cuts.
Russian penitentiary authorities offered a rare tour of this specialized penal colony recently with an eye to demonstrating that these inmates receive no privileges.
In some ways, the officials proved their point. At least as far as accommodations go, the prison is as grim as most. Inside the walls of unpainted concrete slabs, barbed wire slashes the prison yards into zones for those doing hard time and minor offenders. And like the men and women they put behind bars, former police officers here live in rough-hewn brick barracks, toil in a workshop and eat boiled buckwheat and cabbage.
But the tour of the prison, Correctional Colony 13, also underscored a point that the authorities might not have intended to highlight: most of the inmates are here for work-related infractions, from accepting bribes to attacking suspects.
As Andrei V. Shumilov, a former detective, said of his conviction for beating a suspect with his fists during questioning: “I was investigating a crime, and I committed a crime myself.” By way of justification, he mumbled that the man had suffered only “damage to soft tissue.”
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President Dmitry Medvedev Craves a New Economic Order Both at Home and Abroad
While an international legal forum is hardly the perfect setting for delving deep into the intricacies of economic governance, in Russia’s highly convoluted regulatory environment the exception is quite often the rule. As in many international discussion forums hosted by Russia lately, economic issues loom large at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum that kicked off on Friday. “We now need to start discussing new advanced standards in banking, finances and accounting, and common corporate governance standards,” Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev told participants in a keynote address on Friday.
The three-day legal forum, organized to discuss the role of law in the innovative and safe development of global peace, was attended by nearly 500 legal experts and politicians that included Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Cecilia Malstrom, EU Home Affairs commissioner and Hans van Loon, secretary general of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Akira Kawamura, the president of the International Bar Association and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder also attended the forum, which was organized at the behest of the Russian president.
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Congress goes after Russian officials for human rights violations
President Barack Obama is set to meet with Russian President Dmitri Medvdev on May 26 in France on the sidelines of the G-8 meetings. In advance of that meeting, Congress has unveiled a new bill to force the administration to sanction Russian officials for human rights violations.
“One of the core foreign policy objectives when we came into office was the Russia reset,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on a conference call on Friday. “It has been one of the most productive relationships for the United States in terms of the signing and ratification of the New START treaty, cooperation on nuclear security, cooperation with regard to Iran sanctions and nonproliferation generally, the northern distribution network into Afghanistan that supports our effort there, and our discussions with Russia about expanding trade ties and their interest in joining the WTO, as well as Russia’s increased cooperation with NATO that was manifested by the NATO-Russia meetings in Lisbon.”
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Bill Browder welcomes US action over Magnitsky death
A powerful group of US politicians has called for sanctions against Russians allegedly involved in a campaign against financier Bill Browder. Once one of Russia’s largest investors, he claims officials were complicit in a fraud against his firm and the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Now Congressmen, including heavyweights Joe Lieberman and John McCain, propose banning the officials from the US.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev has promised a full inquiry into the death.
The US politicians are backing new legislation put before Congress on Friday, The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011.
In 2005, Mr Browder, who runs fund manager Hermitage Capital, was banned from Russia as a threat to national security after allegations that his firm evaded tax. But Mr Browder says his company was targeted in a $230m (£140m) fraud, and has mounted a strong campaign to uncover what happened to the money and Mr Magnitsky, Hermitage’s lawyer.
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