On the scope of competence of jury courts

In February 2004, the issue of curtailing the powers of jury trials introduced in Russia was initiated. Deputy of the State Duma, former head of the FSB Nikolai Kovalev said that "the consideration by the institute of jury cases on state secrets automatically removes the stamp "top secret" from them . In his opinion, it follows from this that it is necessary either to entrust the selection of jurors to the FSB (!), or generally exclude cases of state secrets from their competence.

in such cases with three professional judges: A few days later, a professor at the FSB Academy, Valery Zazhitsky, spoke in favor of replacing jurors not lawyers, not professionals, they are hardly capable of helping the court to establish the truth .

Amendments to the Criminal Code, introduced by representatives of the FSB to the Russian government, provide for the exclusion from the jurisdiction of the jury articles 275 (high treason), 276 (espionage), 283 (disclosure of state secrets) of the Criminal Code.

Meanwhile, the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta launched a campaign to actually discredit the jury. Having singled out a thematic strip for discussing the problem, in addition to an interview with Pavel Krasheninnikov, she published a conversation with two experts on the issue of state secrets (for some reason, calling them the Council of Experts). One of them was the already mentioned professor of the Academy of the FSB V. Zazhitsky, the second was the director of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering Nikolai Anfimov. The last in this publication (occupying more than half of the page) owns only a few general phrases that even in the modern world there are technologies that constitute state secrets, their disclosure is unacceptable, and perfect legislation will never be created. And the rest of the newspaper space was occupied by an expert from the FSB, convincing the newspaper's readers that the incompetence and unprofessionalism of the jurors will not allow a fair punishment to be given to a person accused of high treason or disclosure of state secrets. However, V. Zazhitsky does not like the jury as such, since the jury - "this is not a service, and not a job" , and they resolve issues "guided by" common sense ", their conscience, moral ideas. An important role in this can be played by their emotional sphere ..." . At the same time, he refers to the experience of the "anti-reforms" of Imperial Russia, when (after the acquittal of Vera Zasulich) criminal cases on state and political crimes, on violent actions against the authorities were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the jury: "It was rightly believed that for a correct judgment about crimes , directed against the state required not only a certain heightened sense of justice, but also clear ideas about the state system, about the political tasks of power, and about many other things that require special and very deep training .

Apparently as proof of the expert's words, the newspaper published as news a month-old report about the scandalous decision of the jury in Bryansk, which acquitted the killer of a policeman who was actually taken red-handed.

The attack on jury trials, apparently, was so strong that Vladimir Lukin, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, was forced to make a special statement in defense of the existing situation, and this statement was almost the first, almost the first statement of V. Lukin in its new quality.

Sources

• Kolesnichenko Alexander. "Troika" instead of the jury // New news. 2004. February 20.
• secret affair // Russian newspaper. 2004. February 20.
• Do not infringe on the jury: Statement of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation // Russian newspaper. 2004. February 27.