Will you be judged?

The new bill again quarreled law enforcement agencies

Knights at the crossroads. The reason for the next round in the confrontation between the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee was the appearance in the Duma of a bill on changing the special procedure for the prosecution of judges and deputies

The head of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office (SKP), Alexander Bastrykin, speaking in February at the collegium of the department, recalled the 2007 reform that separated the investigation and supervision: "I see that even the most inveterate skeptics were convinced of its correctness." The head of the Investigative Committee was dizzy about another victory of the department in a long-standing war: in January, amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure gave investigators the right to initiate cases against a part of “special subjects” - lawyers, prosecutors and investigators in a simplified manner, without a preliminary court opinion on the presence of signs of a crime in their actions.¹

Sun counterattack

However, immediately after the introduction of amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Supreme Court submitted its own bill to the State Duma, which, as a source in the apparatus of the Duma Committee on Legislation told The New Times, became an "asymmetric response." In an explanatory note to the draft law, the Supreme Court wrote: “Giving investigators of the UPC the right to initiate a criminal case and conduct an investigation ... against other participants in criminal proceedings — prosecutors, lawyers — creates the basis for extra-procedural pressure of the investigating authorities on participants in criminal proceedings.” The bill proposed to transfer (already in a simplified form) the initiation and proceedings against special persons to the Prosecutor General's Office and the prosecutor's vertical. The Legislation Committee of the State Duma on February 19 recommended the Duma to adopt the bill. As its head, Pavel Krasheninnikov, explained to The New Times: "The prosecutor's office should still participate in the conduct of investigative measures, and there should be much more linkage with the investigation." The bill in the first reading was already being prepared for discussion by the Duma on Wednesday, February 25. But a higher power intervened.

White House response

As it became known to The New Times, the deputies of Vladimir Pligin's State Construction Committee (co-executor, without his conclusion the bill does not go any further), having shown political ingenuity, decided to wait for the full package of comments on the bill to arrive, and then give their opinion - first of all, the State-Legal Directorate (GPU) of the presidential administration. “It’s a political issue, if you poke your head into it inaccurately, your head will be knocked off,” one of Pligin’s deputies explained in a private conversation. “We were glad that this bill was distributed not to us, but to Krasheninnikov,” added his colleague. The GPU reacted unexpectedly sharply.

According to Vladimir Gruzdev, Krasheninnikov's deputy, a letter from the GPU came to the bill with remarks of a "substantial, fundamental nature." Other interlocutors said that the amendments, in fact, leave the possibility of a “simplified procedure” for the prosecution of these very “special subjects” to Bastrykin’s department. Cause? The tough project of the Investigative Committee is supported by Prime Minister Putin's entourage, and Larisa Brycheva, head of the Kremlin's legal department, has not changed her loyalties with the advent of the new president. Quite "Medvedev's" Krasheninnikov and Pligin hoped for the collegium of the Prosecutor General's Office, which took place on February 25. There, the issue of the investigation was discussed in the presence of the president, and they expected him to either intercede directly or hint at the need to support the Supreme Court bill. But the President remained silent. Obviously, he is not yet ready to go into direct confrontation with the prime minister.

According to political scientist and member of the Civic Chamber Dmitry Badovsky, "The fact that the bill has been postponed once again underlines that the security forces are waiting for a strategic decision." In other words, who will be stronger in this matter - Medvedev or Putin?

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¹ The category of "special entities" also includes the President of Russia, presidential candidates, senators, deputies and judges of all levels, the head and auditors of the Accounts Chamber, the Ombudsman, presidential envoys and voting members of the CEC.