In uniform

Court in uniform

December 23, 2009 Marina Litvinovich

Today, in the third reading of the State Duma, amendments to 31 and 35 of the Articles of the Criminal Procedure Code, according to which citizens accused of terrorism will not be judged by civil, but in military courts. These amendments will apply not only to accused of terrorism, but also to accused of taking hostages, the aircraft or ship, forcibly seizure of power, an encroachment on the life of a state or public figure, an armed rebellion, the organization of illegal armed formation or attack on persons or institutions that enjoy international protection.

Since the amendments will be adopted and soon, after signing by the president, will enter into force (on the day of official publication), it is worthwhile to still maintain an intriguing and confusing history of their appearance for memory. It was like that.

On September 4, 2009, Dmitry Medvedev introduced a bill to the State Duma, according to which it was assumed that a criminal case of a crime of a terrorist and extremist nature may be transferred for consideration from the local court to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation if there is a real threat of personal security of participants in the trial, their close relatives or close persons. In an adopted bill in the list of articles, the Criminal Code also appeared in the infamous 282 article (in the exposure - “extremist”), which has become a universal “punitive tool of a wide profile” for several years.

On September 25, the State Duma adopted the law in the first reading, despite the fact that it contradicts the legal opportunity for the defendant to appeal the court decision in a higher instance.

At this incident, they paid attention to this incident, and on November 19, at a meeting of Medvedev and Gryzlov, the latter proposed instead of the Supreme Court to transfer cases to the district military courts, if there was a petition of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation or his deputy. In addition, it was proposed to return the participation in the courts of jury, however, not for all these articles.

On December 16, the bill was adopted by the State Duma in the second reading. However, it not only replaced the Supreme Court with the military courts, where they can now be sent to consider the case of crimes of a terrorist and “anti -state” orientation, but also a surprise! - removed the 282 article. This was done very unexpectedly, since there was no mention of this anywhere and there was no public discussion on this score.

In fact, the disappearance from this bill 282 of the article is a large victory of some internal, shadow, unknown public forces either in the administration or in the Duma. I don’t know who needs to say thanks, but the fact is obvious. Indeed, recently, accusations under the 282 article of the Criminal Code have been used primarily against political opposition, human rights activists, journalists, bloggers, all those who criticize power and regime. Under the 282 article, wide lists of books, sites, films and entire public and political organizations fall. For 282, many members of the former NBP are sitting in prisons. A few weeks ago, the Tatarstan blogger and journalist Irek Murtazin went to serve his sentence in the colony for 1 year and 9 months for the 282nd article for recording in his blog. There are many examples, they are egregious, but the application of 282 articles to combat dissent and free thought is only exposed, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs grow indicators of “extremist manifestations”. The fact that the 282nd fell out of the text of the amendments-a big plus.

So, on December 23, in the third reading, amendments will be adopted, according to which citizens accused of terrorism and some other crimes will not be judged by civilian courts.

However, these innovations still leave many questions. Why is the military courts? The Law on Military Courts clearly says what they do: "exercise the judiciary in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military units and federal executive bodies, in which federal law provides for military service." Why will civilians be considered in military courts? After all, terror is most often directed against ordinary citizens, which means that civil courts must judge. Military courts have always considered cases exclusively with the armed forces, and here are people purely civilians? Why will crimes under articles affecting state power be considered in military courts? We have not yet a military dictatorship in power.

Let's see what a military court is today. Partially, military judges are acting officers. Another part of the military judges is either retired military personnel, or suspended their military service. In this regard, talking about the independence and impartiality of such judges is quite problematic. How will the judge behave when considering the case if he is in the service, or if he still has to return to it? Professional military personnel often have other value -based installations that are different from “civilian”, which, of course, can affect the quality of justice.

Military courts and more closed than civilian, if we talk about the presence of observers and press on them. For example, on the website of several military courts, the rules of accreditation for journalists are posted. It states that the editors can accredit its journalist on the application, filed a month before the end of the calendar year, applying, in addition to standard data, also a home phone and two photos of a journalist in a size of 4x6 cm. What does this mean? For 2010, the editorial office was late (already December), but for the accreditation for 2011 it will be necessary to accredit all journalists of the relevant departments to all district military courts (and there are only 12 of them), because no one knows in advance where, in which court the case will be considered about any terrorist attack, which, God forbid, will happen. And no editor knows in advance which of the journalists he will send to illuminate the court, so he will have to accredit several editorial departments, and at the same time all regional freelays.

What do we get in practice after the adoption of these amendments, in terms of, for example, victims in terrorist attacks? For almost two years, I was attended by the largest court to consider an act of terrorism in Beslan, on which the member of the gang Nurpashi Kulaev was tried. The court took place in the Supreme Court of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania in Vladikavkaz. This experience gives me the reason to argue that the transfer of courts in terrorism will worsen the quality of justice from the point of view of the participation of the victims and witnesses themselves. Despite the fact that Beslan is only half an hour from Vladikavkaz, even in this situation there were difficulties with the advent of victims and moving hostages to the court. Firstly, many were injured, and even a trip to the “city” caused problems. In addition, the residents of Beslan sometimes simply could not pay for a trip in the minibus to get to Vladikavkaz, since many live poorly. It was at this court that it became clear - the testimony in the court of the former hostages is fundamentally changing the version set forth by the prosecutor's office and the “official”. It is not a matter of justification of terrorists, the point is a full -fledged trial that allows you to participate in it by the victims. The mothers participating in the court, who lost their children in the Beslan school, had no sympathy for Kulaev, but they wanted justice and truth, and not a “demonstrative process over a terrorist”.

If the trial of Kulaev had already been going on with planned amendments, then he would probably have passed not in Vladikavkaz, but in the District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, to which the victims would not reach. A rare decided to settle in Rostov-on-Don, otherwise they would not be able to attend the process in daily mode for almost two years while the process was going on. But now, after the adoption of amendments, all cases of terrorist attacks committed in the Caucasian republics have a chance to be considered in Rostov-on-Don.

The fact that for victims and witnesses in cases of terrorist attacks, the trial is fundamentally important in territorial accessibility, and not in the conditions of ex-territoriality, as proposed, other observations confirm. The district court of the city of Beslan considered the case of police officers of the local police department accused of negligence, which led to the terrorist attack and death. I was present at this court. To my surprise, former hostages and witnesses came to him, who did not participate in court of Kulaev in Vladikavkaz. They explained this either by poor well -being, which did not allow us to travel to another city, or by what they did not know about the process. Literally “walking access” before the court inside the city of Beslan allowed the victims to take part in the establishment of legality and justice.

There was another court - over the Ingush police officers who also accused of negligence, which led to a terrorist attack in Beslan. The trial of them was transferred from the Republic of Ingushetia to a neighboring republic, Kabardino-Balkaria, to the city of Nalchik, since the victims of the Ossetians did not want to go to Ingushetia. As a result, only a few went to this court from the victims and then not always, since the distance is 100 kilometers along a not very good road.

It is worth saying separately about those conditions for transferring the consideration of the case to a military court, which describes the bill under consideration. Now in the bill they are described as follows: “At the request of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation or his deputy ... If there is a real threat of personal security of participants in the trial, their close relatives, relatives or close persons.”

It is clear that first of all we are talking about judges and prosecutors. However, in my memory, curses (not threats) from the victims or defendants were subjected to just those judges and prosecutors who made or supported illegal and unlawful decisions. Or who, in the process of judicial consideration, infringed and violated the rights of victims or defendants.

I do not know about the real statistics of threats to judges by terrorist groups, but it is obvious to me that the condition described as a “real threat” allows you to completely arbitrarily declare its presence. What prevents the prosecutor from informing that he received an anonymous call with threats and he asks to transfer the court to the military? And if the judge or the prosecutor simultaneously participates in several processes and receives such a threat - will we all be transferred to the district military?

So far, fortunately, the head of the Supreme Court Lebedev says that the petition to transfer the consideration of the case “should not be unfounded. The prosecutor's office must confirm it with evidence in respect of whom and from whom there are threats. ” However, knowing the practice of the prosecutor’s work, I undertake to say that everything can be limited to describing threats “from unidentified persons in an unidentified place”.

The supporters of new amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure have another argument. The main speaker and, as they say, the author of these amendments Pavel Krasheninnikov believes that their adoption “will allow, on the one hand, to protect witnesses and victims from pressure from the parties and relatives of the defendants, and on the other, to ensure an uncorrect and objective consideration of the case and give terrorists according to merits.” Krasheninnikov is concentrated precisely on terrorism, because it is easiest to get public support here. However, I doubt that this argument is meaningful: it turns out that civilian courts cannot “provide an uncorporate and objective consideration of the case and give terrorists according to merit”? In addition, the number of cases of pressure on witnesses and victims from the part of the accomplices of terrorist crimes is negligible. The public is much more well known for cases of pressure on witnesses and victims precisely from various power organs.

It is possible that one of the reasons for amendments to the Criminal Code is in a very small, but stronger, but straining number of acquittals or partial-true sentences of civil courts in the North Caucasus, which accused of terrorism received. Usually this happened with the participation of jury. However, the jury is going to return now to the military courts. How can they work there, and from whom will they get?

Summing up, I emphasize once again: the introduction of a new norm will not improve justice, but only worsen. There is, for example, a violation of the rights of victims to participate in a court examination. But the main danger is that these amendments to the Criminal Code are the first step towards expanding the competence of military courts over citizens and civil crimes. And this is a step in the wrong direction.

Photos of RIA Novosti