"Now you can sit forever"

Vladimir Putin signed a law according to which it is possible to reopen a criminal case or review a court decision already made in the case. Previously, there was a provision in the Criminal Procedure Code that made it possible to refuse to reopen a criminal case if the court had already made a decision on it - even if new aggravating circumstances were discovered. Now the court has the right to return the criminal case to the prosecutor’s office if, as the law says, “after sending the criminal case to the court, new socially dangerous consequences of the act charged to the accused occur, which are the basis for charging him with committing a more serious crime.” It turns out that the case can be sent back to the prosecutor's office even if the verdict is overturned. The bill was introduced by the government, adopted by the State Duma on April 12, approved by the Federation Council on April 17, and then signed by the president.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Moscow Legal Center Bar Association, former State Duma deputy and Deputy President of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation, Gasan Mirzoev, believes that it is necessary to separate the two situations. “If the court sends the case for additional investigation, I must say that a situation actually arises today when it is clear that it is easier for a person to confess to committing some minor crime and he makes a deal with justice, and then it turns out that this person committed a number of other serious crimes. Therefore, during the trial, various circumstances of the case are revealed, and it is quite possible that a situation may arise when the judge sees that additional examinations really need to be carried out,” explains Hasan Mirzoev in a conversation with PublicPost.

But a “turn for the worse” when the court has already made a decision, in his opinion, is unacceptable. “For example, if the court decided to impose a sentence of one year, and then considers the case again and gives it three years, this is unacceptable under any circumstances. This is a lack of humanity and a formula not accepted even in the Soviet system,” says Hasan Mirzoev. Such a decision could also have negative consequences because in Russia there are “made-to-order cases,” adds Mirzoev: “Someone will not like that they gave a minor punishment, they will lobby to have the case canceled, sent for further investigation and reconsidered in order to so that there is a turn for the worse."

Member of the Public Chamber and lawyer Anatoly Kucherena also does not support “a norm that would worsen the situation.” But he adds that you need to delve into the nuances: “In this case, you need to read under what circumstances this is possible. If we are talking about cases of detection of a more serious crime, then the inevitable fact is that the law enforcement officer must act within the framework of the current legislation. If a more serious crime “then more severe sanctions and punishment are possible. Therefore, in this case I do not see any problems in this regard.”

Human rights activist and head of the Prison Children program in the Sitting Rus' organization Maria Noel believes that “the law was issued contrary to the fundamentals of criminal law.” In practice, according to her, he threatens “extension of the terms of political prisoners and those obviously unjustly convicted, or rather new terms.” Noel notes that the law "was discussed very quietly and suddenly appeared like this." “With such a bunch of laws now you can sit forever,” says Maria Noel.

The text of the law was published on Friday, April 26, on the official Internet portal of legal information .