Dubrovka scale

Former hostages are ready to seek compensation in the Supreme Court and Strasbourg

The lawyer for the former hostages who suffered from the terrorist attack on Dubrovka did not agree with the decision of the Tver Intermunicipal Court, which rejected the first three claims against the capital government. As expected, on Thursday the defense filed a short cassation appeal with the Moscow City Court. A detailed complaint will be drawn up on the basis of a reasoned court decision, which was presented to the plaintiffs yesterday. Judge Marina Gorbacheva refused the hostages, considering that Moscow is not obliged to pay compensation to the victims of the terrorist attack. As noted in the reasoned decision of the Tverskoy Court, the law “On the Fight against Terrorism” “does not contain direct indications of the need for a subject of the federation to pay compensation to victims of a terrorist attack.”

“When it comes to money, everyone starts to get weird,” Mr. Trunov explained to a correspondent for the Vremya Novostei newspaper. “That’s why I’m afraid to predict the outcome of the trial in the Moscow City Court.” If the case against the hostages in Moscow is finally lost, the defense plans to immediately appeal to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Let us recall that the financial litigation between the hostages and relatives of those killed at Dubrovka with the Moscow government became possible thanks to Article 17 of the law “On the Fight against Terrorism.” It is this that provides for the payment of compensation to victims of a terrorist attack from the budget of the region where the terrorist attack occurred, or from the federal budget if the regional budget does not have enough money. Lawyer Trunov was one of the first to point out this loophole in the law to the former hostages, after which the number of his clients from among the victims of the tragic events at Dubrovka increased almost weekly. However, the Tverskoy court did not agree with Mr. Trunov’s logic and considered that the law he raised did not at all imply the obligation to pay compensation. “As a lawyer, I get confused when I read the court decision. It turns out that the court is repealing the federal law and thereby taking on legislative functions,” the lawyer said yesterday.

By the way, Igor Trunov also recalled that when the law “On the Fight against Terrorism” was adopted, the federal budget provided an amount for paying compensation to victims of possible terrorist attacks, and this amount is 2 billion rubles. According to the victims' lawyer, when huge claims were filed against the Moscow government, no one expected that the exact amounts claimed would be paid. However, the defense decided to demand compensation reaching tens of millions of dollars in order to attract the attention of the authorities and society to the case.

However, the million-dollar lawsuits, unprecedented for the Russian legal system, caused a strong reaction from the public from the very beginning. As Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Commission under the President of the Russian Federation, William Smirnov, said yesterday, these amounts are clearly inflated, which cannot be justified either from a legal or ethical point of view. Nevertheless, Mr. Smirnov believes that consideration of the claims of former hostages should resolve a whole range of problems related to the assessment of moral and material damage. First of all, according to the human rights activist, it is necessary to establish the real price of the life and health of citizens. “Each of us must understand whether this kind of compensation should be paid at the level of rich Western countries or still not forget about the millions of poor, homeless and sick people, the disabled and pensioners, who are no less in need of help from the state and society,” Mr. - Mr. Smirnov. According to the human rights activist, the trial on the claims of former hostages against the Moscow government will create a precedent that will allow not only to legislatively regulate all cases of compensation payments, but also to develop an “adequate scale” of such payments.

There are currently 58 lawsuits pending in the Tverskoy Court. On Thursday, lawyer Igor Trunov was going to file 20 new claims from former hostages, but the judge was not there, and the court secretary refused to accept the documents, citing a lack of authority.

Kirill MIKHAILOV