| Lawyers have expanded their rights The epic with the passage of the law “On Advocacy and the Legal Profession” is almost over. Yesterday the State Duma adopted the draft in the second reading. Compared to the first version, major changes have been made to it. According to defenders, the authors of the first draft wanted to make the legal profession controlled by the state, and the people who prepared it were far from the legal profession and pursued their own purely bureaucratic goals. But the Kremlin intervened: having encountered energetic resistance from the legal community, the presidential administration decided to listen to the arguments of lawyers. The problem was personally addressed by Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak. And then the process of rapprochement between the positions of the Kremlin and the legal profession began: Mr. Kozak organized weekly meetings between lawyers and government officials. During the discussions, the defenders managed not only to defend, but also to expand their rights - they will not be able to be detained without court approval, and they themselves will be able to see their clients not at the mercy of the investigator, but for business reasons. Corporate self-government bodies - bar associations - have also been retained.
Nevertheless, the passage of the law in the Duma was not without battles. The communists were rejected by the provision allowing regional bar associations to open their branches in other regions and territories. As Anatoly Lukyanov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) said, “Muscovites pursuing commercial goals demand this.” And independent deputy Adrian Puzanovsky said that this permission will lead to the fact that there will only be “one very expensive legal profession left in the country - the Moscow one.” In response, their opponents spoke in the spirit that Lukyanov and Puzanovsky expressed the interests of local bar generals who fear competition from qualified rivals. However, it is precisely the monopolization of legal practice in the regions that will lead to an increase in the cost of legal services, according to representatives of the legal community, who have written down in the new law a rule allowing the opening of branches of colleges.
Then Mr. Lukyanov threw the last argument into the balance, threatening a solidary vote of the faction against the amendment. However, the times when communists were feared in the Duma are over. The amendment was accepted. And the law passed with an almost constitutional majority of 292 votes.
Now, according to the deputy chairman of the State Construction Committee, Hasan Mirzoev (SPS), “a new law has appeared that will protect human rights and will allow a lawyer not to be afraid of local authorities.” Other stakeholders were also optimistic. Deputy head of the presidential administration Dmitry Kozak, in a conversation with a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper, said: “Today is a big day in the history of the Russian legal profession. I really hope the changes will be positive."
“The project is absolutely brilliant,” and in the opinion of lawyer Boris Kuznetsov: “The concept of a lawyer is absolutely clearly defined, and guarantees of legal practice have appeared. Documents cannot be confiscated from a lawyer; he cannot be questioned as a witness in the case he is conducting. The legal profession is built on an absolutely Western model.”
Lawyer Mikhail Barshchevsky, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent, called the law “progressive, absolutely necessary, but, unfortunately, somewhat belated.” The law, in his opinion, opens up opportunities for the creation of “an independent, truly free legal profession.” “But practice will show what is needed to make it ideal,” Mr. Barshchevsky added. Pavel APTEKAR |
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