In the opposition

Prosecutors will not wait

June 24, 2009 Mikhail Delyagin

Unfortunately, since on Monday it was June 22, the day of the beginning of the war, I could not come to the second trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev - and therefore missed the phantasmagoric performance when the “evidence” represented by the prosecutors dispelled their own accusations to dust.

I only got to look into the unfortunate, bewildered, bewildered, and even kindness in my loss, the face of Judge Danilkin and quietly rejoice that for many years I have nothing to do with the state, whose prosecutors, apparently, are not able to catch the meaning of the documents they present.

And on Tuesday, in court it was frankly bored.

Of all the prosecutors, only Lakhtin deigned to appear on time (and even a little in advance). Everyone else came with a little delay, not demonstrating an excessively frank disrespect for the court, but unobtrusively emphasizing who the master is here.

On this, the meaningful actions of the state prosecution, in my opinion, ended. The prosecutor first confused for a long time, what exactly the number is on the volume, which he was going to read out, and then began to “announce” the individual sheets from this volume (thanks in order): after the first sheets, the 56th, then 79 and 80, then 90 and 91, then 94-96, 98-99, 101, then at once 143-144, 148th and so on ...

The essence of the matter was in a rather free (albeit with quoting elements) retelling of agreements on the purchase of bills. After the essay on the topic of each bill was a quiet humble defender and paid the attention of the judge to inaccuracies, overexposure, confusion, ignoring significant information, etc.

Occasionally, he, however, did not get up at all, and then the prosecutor, translating the spirit, proceeded to the description of the next agreement, sometimes showing it to the judge and the defender.

A retelling with a partial reading of agreements was given to the prosecutor; He often stammered and leaned to the text. I sat on the side and did not see whether he drives a finger over him and whether his tongue protrudes from the strain, but sometimes a similar sensation arose.

It seems that he read the documents described by him fluently for the first or second time in his life; There was no question of any “ownership” of the material. In addition to constant confusion and errors in the fragments he read, he was stipulated among the bills. It got to the point that Judge Danilkin was forced to interrupt him and indicate that he all the time calls different numbers: first 15 bills, then 12. The prosecutor replied that he was talking about 19 bills, but the judge again corrected him, indicating that he was talking about 15 bills. Prosecutor Lakhtin replied with pressure: “I made a reservation,” and the judge just did not spread his hands.

After about half an hour of mournful reading, it turned out that the bills were still 37.

Last time, I drew attention to the brilliant possession of the prosecutors in the Russian language. This time with oral speech, everything was relatively normal. But with reading is more difficult - it is so difficult that the lawyer had to draw the attention of the prosecutor twice that in Russian they usually write in line, not column - and you need to read accordingly. “Then everything will be clear,” the lawyer patiently explained.

However, the degree of meaningfulness of the selectively “announced” fragments of “evidence” was such that the prosecutor, perhaps, could read them from right to left and the “switch of the bull”, which the ancient Greeks wrote (odd lines from left to right, and even from right to left).

All those present in the hall understood that such a “idea” of evidence was unacceptably contradicting the procedural norms, since evidence should be read completely and in a row (otherwise it is simply not evidence, and the judge, in principle, cannot realize their meaning). But the arguments of common sense seemed to have worried the prosecutors no more than the requirements of the law.

On their faces, longing was written.

The escorts stood with the statutory, but slightly puzzled faces. It seems that they, who saw a lot in these halls, have long felt that something was going completely different from it.

The girl from the Federal Property Management Agency for some time found a joy in an enthusiastic exchange with someone SS, but then this fun was exhausted.

Probably, on this first sunny summer day, representatives of the prosecution desperately wanted on vacation, at sea - on Cyprus, to Turkey or, at worst, to Abkhazia.

But they heroically dragged on and so promised to be a long process.

In fact: Well, what prevented the prosecutors from making a normal combined table for all the counts read and announce it?

Of course, it is quite possible that there is no malicious intent here, and the point is only in the exclusive intellectual abilities of representatives of the ruling bureaucracy, including the prosecutor's office: it is impossible to completely exclude the fact that they simply do not know about the possibility of drawing up a summary table!

But it seems to me more correct another option for the explanation: in the administrative heaven “closed”.

Sung by all (old) by the local flatterers, Tandemocracy is not yet able to make a agreed decision on the fate of the defendants, because any decision means an unacceptable demonstration of hostility for it - either the West or the power oligarchy.

And any solution for this symbolically significant case will change the balance of forces between the two heads of state - and, accordingly, two blurry, but powerful clans that are guided by them.

And the prosecutors are trembling from the fact that instead of a verdict, the judge, at the lesson hour, can say: “We have not decided here yet, so decide for yourself, brother. What is written in your laws? “So decide on them.”

Or, more likely, he will receive two mutually exclusive teams - which in fact will mean the same.

And then he can make a decision by law!

But there is nothing worse than such a solution for the “souvenir democracy” already forgotten by its clicus.

And therefore, prosecutors are pulling time to wait for the decision.

They, I think, are well aware that this decision will be made by the “Higher Court”. Not in religious and not even in the administrative, but the "purely specific" sense of the word. And practically nothing depends on them, prosecutors: they say, even in a Tarabar, even in Arama-the decision will be made depending on political expediency.

Which of each of the stories of Putin statehood of Putin's statehood inexorably leaving on the ice.

And the prosecutors foresee that it will not work to combine these expediency in this particular (or rather, “purely specific”) case, no matter how much you pull.

"How much a rope is not to twist, the tip is to be."

Especially after the visit of Obama, who - even simply by status, will be a partner only of the president, not the prime minister.

Prosecutors hope that somehow this problem will be resolved: what else remains for them?

Not for Putin, in the end, the election of the chairman of the Constitutional Court was canceled!

But while their hope remains hope, they are taking time.

They are waiting.

They read papers on the leaf - and God with her, with Abkhazia.

But the whole point is that they will not wait.

Author is the director of the Institute of Problems of Globalization, Doctor of Economics

Photo by Dmitry Berko /www.borko.ru