Yakovleva vs Gudkov

Why has the death of a lawyer Sergei Magnitsky became possible? Is it necessary to subject businessmen to preliminary imprisonment on charges of economic crimes? What to do if the investigation uses arrest before the court as a measure of coercion? The chairman of the non-profit partnership “Business Solder” Yana Yakovlev and deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Colonel of the FSB in reserve Gennady Gudkov argued about this in the editorial office of The New Times.
In the case of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Butyrskaya prison, a lot of strange. And most importantly, if a lot was known about the suffering of other hostages-legalists-Vasily Aleksanyan, Svetlana Bakhmina, then the death of Magnitsky sounded like a thunder among a clear sky. Do you think his colleagues and bosses had to raise a scandal?
Gennady Gudkov : Of course.

Yana Yakovleva : There was something there, which we do not know. Some provocation against him. Someone persuaded everyone to be silent.

Run away from sin
In his notes, he writes that in 10 months he did not receive a single date.
Yakovleva : This is a common thing. Never a single investigator gives dates before the case is referred to the court. One date in the early days, and that’s all. Letters can be written.

He wrote complaints, lawyers wrote requests. No one reacted. Now they say that he did not complain ... Yakovleva : so much money was stolen. Of course, they will hide behind as they can.
Gudkov : Probably knew too much.

Do you think he was killed in this way?
Gudkov : No. They just let them die. In general, the scandal is such that it is better not to climb into Europe. It is a shame to say that you are from Russia. The degradation of the nation passed the point of no return. Normal people run out of the country. For the past 15 years of the direct losses of the educated, qualified population - 90 thousand per year. Rolter for 15 years.
Yakovleva : Because they do not want to die in Butyrka.

And now the president clicked his fingers - and a criminal case has been instituted on the fact of negligence and non -ordering of medical care ... Gudkov : we begin to work for the public.

Satter not to plant

Magnitsky went to prison with his feet, healthy. How could what happened? GUDKOV: This is not only FSINA. Of course, they are completely guilty, but there is wine and investigator.
Yakovleva : Why was it at all to plant him?
GUDKOV : It was completely optional, not such a serious accusation - up to 6 years. Although there are economic crimes when isolation is needed. When the head of the organized group carries out theft, the export of capital can hide traces ... At that moment, he begins to work out schemes with accomplices. In serious economic crimes, of course, the maintenance of detention is necessary.
Yakovleva : Last year, we gathered an international conference on preventive measures, which a federal judge from New York Robert Levy came to. He said that, before going to Russia, he asked his colleagues, whether in economic affairs they used to at least such a pre-trial preventive measure-arrest. Nobody!

Gudkov : I don’t know what your judge said, I know something else. The company, whose shareholder I am, suffered from the actions of a fraudster in Europe. On this occasion, a criminal case has been instituted, the necessary examinations have been conducted. In the near future, the person accused by us will be detained - in absolute accordance with European laws. And it will be detained before the court. I studied European practice. There is a system of collaterals, house arrest, a non -departure subscription. But there is a mechanism for detention. They do not often have this measure, but is used.

What economic crimes should be erupted in prison during the preliminary investigation? Gudkov : For example, such as the matter on which he testified (and for this was injured) Magnitsky - about the return of $ 230 million VAT from the state treasury for two days is unknown to anyone. So that a person does not escape with these millions.

That is, when large sums appear? Gudkov: When a crime is committed by an organized group. When there is a distribution of roles, the mechanisms of destruction of evidence. The possibility of influence on the investigation.

And if there is a corruption order? Gudkov : There is a court for this, he determines the degree of danger of a crime and a preventive measure. Another thing is that our courts rarely refuse the investigator in measures related to the restriction of freedom, stamp the decisions actually indiscriminately. 178 thousand we have before trial in investigative insulators! Restriction measures are often a way of accounting for accounts ... but these are the shortcomings of the system - its corrupt, poor work of investigators. The problem is that over the past five years, the number of prisoners has increased by almost 200 thousand people. In the liberalization of legislation in the 90s, to 750 thousand decreased, and now again it has grown to almost the previous size.
Yakovleva : And according to economic articles, such sentences are now sentenced to killers: 8 years, 10 years.
GUDKOV : If large amounts of money are stolen using the official position - and according to European laws, a punishment from 10 to 25 years is entitled. Another thing is that there they make it possible to defend themselves and there are normal conditions of detention. I defended Aigul Makhmudov, * * a journalist from Kuzminkov, who was persecuted for professional activities. I went to her in a pre -trial detention center twice and I know what it is. I somehow asked to sit for 20 minutes in the kartser. Strong impression! But the disadvantages of our system are not due to the fact that our legislation is super-fierce, but due to the fact that it is applied incorrectly. Due to corruption. By the way, I am surprised that neither relatives nor Magnitsky’s lawyers could agree on normal conditions of detention.
Yakovleva : To agree is to admit your guilt.
Gudkov : I personally participated in the struggle for the fate of a number of citizens who were convicted and arrested by order. And despite the order, despite the intervention of large figures in the law enforcement system, they still managed to get through some agreements in the more or less acceptable conditions of the detention. And how Magnitsky was sitting is, of course, a nightmare. And sick. If he was not poisoned, of course ... they could have stab something. The lawyer had to raise the universal scandal, relatives had to go to decisive, desperate, public measures. Then this would not have happened.
Yakovleva : I believe that under no circumstances can not be deprived of freedom for economic crimes before the trial. There is no need for isolation when a person has a family, business. It is enough to arrest the assets and pick up the passport so that he does not leave. And then, if a person has a passport, it is immediately the reason to plant it - such a wording was both with me and many others. * * Yana Yakovleva was arrested in the famous “Case of Chemists”, which was initiated by the Federal Drug Control Service, served in a pre -trial detention center for 7 months, after which it was fully justified by the court. My father told the investigator: “Take her passport, break, throw it out” - all wasted. When it comes to only money, and not about human life, it is not necessary to use a prison torture. Economic cases are very difficult, not every judge can still figure it out, we do not have a special criminal court in such cases. A person is planted, although it is still not clear whether he is guilty at all or was it an ordinary deal. Today we can even call a fraudulent transaction today - see article 159 of the Criminal Code on fraud. I supply the goods and take a certain price for it - anyone can say that I deceived it, and they put me in jail for it. And we know that if we are arrested, it means guilty, people receive real terms.
Gudkov : Well, firstly, there is specialization, and judges are constantly undergoing training on economic issues. The economic crime of an economic crime is different, I can give a lot of examples when officials climbed into children's funds, stole the money of pensioners, and these were intentional actions. And here, of course, it is necessary to plant, because otherwise they will begin to include connections, destroy evidence, destroy documents, influence witnesses. Another thing is that the cases that come to the court really end by 98% ending. World practice is completely different. But we must clearly understand that only 10-15%reaches the trial of the criminal cases, and the rest of the cases fall apart or close during the investigation. As for restrictive measures, they should be used reasonably. It is necessary to use the pledge mechanism wider, now new control methods have appeared: house arrest, electronic bracelets, which make it possible to control the location of a person with an accuracy of two meters.
Yakovleva : In the United States, 18 measures to restrict freedom, and arrest is only one of them.

A vicious circle

Who more often steals - entrepreneurs or officials? Gudkov : Officials, of course.

But it is businessmen who are planted in Butyrka and other pre -trial detention centers and keep there for months. GUDKOV : Try to put a senior official, I would like to look at the investigator of the prosecutor's office to whom this will be entrusted.
Yakovleva : The circle closed.
Gudkov: We are talking about what is needed, and not about what is. Total corruption leads to the distortion of the principles of justice, and justice, and expediency, and rationality. But this does not mean that there are no serious economic crimes. There is a mafia that bankrupt plants, displays assets, ruins people, leads them to death. Of course, the thief must sit in prison, no one canceled this principle. Another question is that there should be very serious grounds to put a person in jail.

There is such an argument: if the fear of arrest will not finish the businessmen, then they will stop paying taxes. Remember the 90s ... Yakovleva : For business, fines and penalties for underpayment of taxes are a fairly terrible threat. It is necessary to make sure that according to the law it was impossible to register an organization-one-day and “wash” money. When the law narrows to clear, understandable rules, it becomes unprofitable not to pay taxes to business.
GUDKOV: If tax failure is the norm, then the tax system is abnormal. We do not even have the amount of taxes are absurd, but, for example, the composition of the costs, which is determined by the idiotic instructions of the Ministry of Finance. There is no tax deduction for many costs of the enterprise, and therefore you can never honestly show profit. People understand that the state is inflating them. It is beneficial to the state when everyone is to blame - anyone can be pressed. And since everyone has a skeleton in the closet, we have such controlled entrepreneurs. A very convenient system: a controlled business community that does not burst out will not begin to finance the opposition.

Returning to the Magnitsky case: Judge Stashin, extending him once again in custody, literally refused for a minute to all complaints, all the petitions of the defense. What is this court in which the investigator by definition is always right? Yakovleva : Arrest is a conveyor. To make it different, you need a political signal. The judge who will authorize the arrest, and not vice versa, as now, should be under suspicion.
GUDKOV : Judges do not deeply study the materials of the prosecution. They fit soullessly and formally, sending people to prison before the trial. The prisons are crowded, the conditions of detention are far from normal ... Of course, this is a difficult test. I know a lot of people who have undergone investigative isolation and whose complete innocence has been proven, they were released, but who is 6, some 8, some 10 months, who served a year and a half. Storchak served 11 months, Bulbov - 2 years. And how did it end? And how many names we do not know ... that they abuse a preventive measure, not only we, our (Duma) committee, screaming on every corner, even the prosecutor general spoke. The Plenum of the Supreme Court of Russia should finally take place on this subject.
Yakovleva : The Plenum of the Supreme Court is an interior. The State Duma adopts the law, and there should be no plenum where it is interpreted under the noise.
Gudkov : With a de facto single-party system, the Duma lost the right to interpret the adopted laws. This right is given to the Constitutional Court today. And in a certain part of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. I think this is absolutely wrong.

Do not be silent

What to do people? If the "werewolves" in uniform are ordering a criminal case? GUDKOV : Protest! Demand from power!

Yakovleva : To create a coalition of decent people, to protect a person as public as possible - so that the opposite side could not extinguish the scandal. Then “customers” this business becomes unprofitable - the costs are too large.

And if the order cost $ 6 million? What or who can kill such an amount?

Gudkov : Ten million. Just joking, of course.

Yakovleva : Only publicity. Anyone who gives a bribe is also a corruption. 10, 20 million is a dregs that you can’t take to the public. People are not fools, they will not protest and fight where someone paid. A public scandal is the only option for today.

Gudkov : When the noise rises around some prisoner, this does not always change his fate, but at least they relate to him with greater thoroughness, more strictly observing the law.

Yakovleva : Only then does the mouth open at this system when the sitting “client” becomes inconvenient due to noise ... And when everything happens in silence, they calmly do their jobs.

Do you think Magnitsky’s case will be truly investigated? Or they will find the switchmen ...

Gudkov : FSIN will have to defend himself. But 90% - for the fact that the case will be more or less investigated.

Yakovleva : It is easy to investigate the death case. They will remove the doctor - and that’s it. But the case with theft of VAT ... Everything will depend on the level of the scandal, on what a foreign reaction will be. And she already has it. This story spoils the image of Russia, nullifies the president’s word about investments. Gudkov: The image of Medvedev spoils this for sure.

But investment still goes to the country. Khodorkovsky did not stop them.

Gudkov : All for the time being. There is a law of transition of quantity to quality. We already see how he is being implemented.

Yana Yakovleva is the financial director of SOFEX. The founder and chairman of the non-profit partnership “Business Solder”, created to protect entrepreneurs. The author of the book "Non -Electronic Letters."

Gennady Gudkov is a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, a member of the Security Committee. Deputy Chairman of the Fair Russia faction. Colonel of the FSB in stock.