Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russia’s judicial system and the Tower of Pisa — a shared fate awaits

UPI.com

It is fairly well accepted that President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a democracy in name only. He controls the legislature, which passes laws aimed at giving him greater powers. He controls the police, who demonstrate a heavy propensity for arresting Putin critics. He controls a judiciary boasting a record of convictions of those involved in opposing Putin’s seemingly unlimited authority.

The playing field in Russia has clearly been tilted in Putin’s favor. One can only wonder how much more tilting such a system can endure?

Not unlike the Tower of Pisa, the tilting appears to be a continuing process with little hope it will ever abate of its own accord. Nowhere has this become more obvious than in a recent court ruling in the continuing case of the late Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky was a Russian auditor. He was hired to investigate a dubious claim that a company that had earlier been credited with overpaying its taxes was suddenly being accused of underpaying them.

Magnitsky’s audit uncovered a massive theft of state assets orchestrated by Russian officials working in collusion with a criminal element seeking to leave the company open for exploitation by government officials.

Magnitsky identified a policeman involved in the scandal who accused the auditor of fraud and theft. An arrest was made on Nov. 23, 2008 — not of the policeman but Magnitsky — for fraud and tax evasion. The man who had discovered and reported the fraud was now being charged for committing it!