So, will they win?

“The state is me,” said one French king, and he was probably right in many ways. The state is precisely those whose interests are primarily protected by the royal musketeers or the guardsmen, or the Tonton Macoutes, in a word - the security forces. Before whose appearance the road is cleared, for whose mayonnaise the chicken coops of ordinary citizens are emptied. But we live in the twenty-first century, when there are entire institutions for protecting the interests of citizens from those who require cakes, regardless of the presence or absence of bread from these citizens. These institutions, however, are diligently discredited in our country, and, in addition, they are trying to make it difficult for citizens to access these institutions. Of course, since Russia is the largest “supplier” of cases to the Strasbourg court. According to statistics, the number of cases from Russia is constantly growing:

2001 - 2490 complaints;

2002 - 4716;

2003 - 6602;

2004 - 7855;

2005 - 10009.

As of November 2008, decisions were made in Strasbourg on 579 Russian cases, in 544 of which human rights violations were found. And Russia recognized the jurisdiction of the European Court. Thus, the following comes out: a citizen of Russia must go through a number of courts at different levels within the country, and these courts do not recognize his rightness, because if they did, then why would a person go to Strasbourg? A court is elected as the highest moral authority, which does not say who stole from whom, but whether or not it finds a violation of the rights of a given person. And awards compensation. It's not about her. And the point is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was 60 years old last year. And, in accordance with the Declaration, the citizen receives from a supranational body some recognition that the fight against a stronger structure (the state) was carried out in violation of the rules by this structure. That is, Strasbourg protects, as best it can, a person from the state.

And there is no need to fan out your fingers and ask: who are they to judge our state? They have judged and are judging any state that violates the rights of its citizens. And the state, which they tried, signed an agreement to this possibility. However, I leave to those dissatisfied with the activities of the Strasbourg court the full right to be judged exclusively by the Russian state. A very popular scenario for such a trial is when a high official hits someone on the road to death. The investigation of accidents involving motorcades of high-ranking officials, as practice shows, ends with the closure of cases. The drivers of accompanying cars, even if they are obviously guilty, are recognized by the traffic police as innocent, and it is almost impossible to prove anything to ordinary people.

Recently, a decision was made in Strasbourg to consider the case of the long-suffering YUKOS. Yukos' complaint, filed by his London lawyer Piers Gardner, was received by the Strasbourg court on April 23, 2004. YUKOS referred to the fact that during the consideration of tax cases the right to a fair trial, provided for in Art. 6 of the 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In particular, YUKOS believed that tax cases should have been heard by the court in Nefteyugansk, where the company was registered, and not in Moscow. In addition, YUKOS claimed a violation of the right to protection of property provided for by Protocol No. 1 to the convention. “The tax rulings for the years 2000-2003 were arbitrary, unlawful and disproportionate because their likely result was the destruction of the company,” the complaint said.

According to YUKOS, the purpose of the enforcement proceedings (especially the sale of Yuganskneftegaz shares) was to “prevent the company from paying its debts.” Another important argument of YUKOS was that double tax penalties were applied to the company that used the widespread tax optimization scheme. The Strasbourg court largely agreed with Yukos's arguments. His complaint was declared admissible in terms of enforcement of tax decisions, including the sale of Yuganskneftegaz, as well as in terms of doubled tax fines. The Strasbourg court saw a possible violation of YUKOS's right to a fair trial in the fact that YUKOS was unable to obtain and, accordingly, appeal the court's decision to collect taxes in time, which led to the immediate execution of this decision. It is unlikely that the Russian government, pleased by this, demanded that the case be stopped in connection with the liquidation of YUKOS. You know, no person, no problem. Please keep this in mind for the future if you are going to the Strasbourg court. No, I’m not trying to put everyone on different sides of the “good-bad” border. I'm just drawing conclusions.

In Russia - the police, the traffic police, the land police, whatever you want, the prosecutor's office, the court - they all play on the same side, all together. And this side is not always yours. To reduce the number of complaints from Russians to the European Court of Human Rights, this nasty knot must be cut. This could turn us from a great country into a civilized country. But for some reason I doubt that a legally competent president who verbally understands the importance of this process will agree to it. Our authorities show surprising modesty from time to time. It’s a no brainer (Comrade Ryklin, nothing personal) that a fleeting movement of an eyebrow is enough, and certain actions will be completed or stopped, or even committed according to the law. And it is precisely at such moments that the top officials of the state intelligently explain that they have no right to interfere in this matter. We have seen this more than once. And we'll see you again and again. And the desire expressed by Medvedev at the very beginning of his presidential career is for everyone to live according to the law - this desire does not apply to all citizens of the country. And there is always an excuse - we are not ready for this stage, our people are wild...

Here's a look at the big stories involving jury trials. The case of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. The suspects have been acquitted. The case of the murder of Paul Klebnikov, editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine. The suspects have been acquitted. The case of the murder of a nine-year-old Tajik girl. The suspects have been acquitted. And the lawyer for the murdered woman’s family says: juries don’t like law enforcement agencies. Shortcomings and inconsistencies in the investigation immediately become obvious. Let me translate: when third-party observers make a decision, they are actually assessing how strong the evidence of guilt is. And if the evidence is not so, they decide to acquit. This is some kind of disaster! You can't call the jury in a big bossy voice; they - all at once - are difficult to intimidate or bribe. Remember the story with the same case of Anna Politkovskaya, when Judge Zubov told reporters that the jurors did not want to participate in the trial in the presence of the press. And so the court case is closed. The court clerk asked the jury to sign a document stating that they did not want the press to be present. And the jury, having heard the official version of the closure of the trial, was indignant. Well, how do you work with such jurors?

According to statistics, juries acquit more than 20% of suspects, while professional judges acquit just under 1%. And this means, first of all, that the principle of looking from the outside works. Because before they took Chikatilo, several people were convicted. And someone accused of the most serious crime has the right to at least have someone doubt his guilt. So the jury is not afraid of the authorities or the sanctions of the building manager. This means that they are uncontrollable, and they have already begun to be fought with the help of a bill to limit the use of jury trials. And this bill was introduced by a deputy from you know which party. And the fact that the jury institute operates all over the world did not convince the deputy from you know which party that there is some initial objectivity inherent in the activities of such an institute.

So, the Strasbourg court confirms that a certain state violates the rights of certain citizens... And why do we need a Strasbourg court? A jury acquits citizens whose guilt evidence is not convincing. And why do we need a jury trial? As a result, all attempts to prove to you and me that Russian bread will not be born in someone else’s way are aimed at the ability to successfully defeat you and me. So will they defeat us?