| The Moscow City Court gave Nicholas II and his family a new chance for rehabilitation The Moscow City Court recently notified the head of the Imperial House of Romanov about the reasons for canceling the decision of the Tver District Court of the capital to refuse to recognize the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and members of his family as victims of political repression. As the press service of the Moscow City Court told Vremya Novostey, the Tver court, instead of carefully studying the issue of the need for rehabilitation, actually got off with a formal formal reply - it recognized as legal the document of the Prosecutor General's Office, which reported the refusal to satisfy the request of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.
Since 1991, the cases of hundreds of thousands of citizens who became victims of Soviet terror, hundreds of thousands of military personnel and prisoners of war illegally convicted of crimes during the Great Patriotic War have been reviewed by military and civilian courts. But the question of the rehabilitation of the last Russian Tsar and his wife and children, executed in the notorious Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, was raised relatively recently. “This case is extremely interesting from a political, historical, and legal point of view,” noted the chairman of the Moscow City Court, Olga Egorova, at a press conference dedicated to the results of the work of the capital’s courts. And it’s really hard to disagree with this.
The head of the Imperial House of Romanov, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, at the end of last year, through her representative, appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to recognize the former Emperor of Russia Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the 14-year-old heir Alexei, as well as the Tsar's daughters - Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia - victims of political repression and the issuance of certificates of political rehabilitation. In February, the Grand Duchess received a response from the head of the department for ensuring the participation of prosecutors in the consideration of criminal cases by the courts of the Prosecutor General's Office Oleg Ankudinov, in which her request was denied. Then Ms. Romanova’s lawyer, German Lukyanov, filed a similar statement with the Tver Court, in which he asked to recognize the right to rehabilitation as justified and to oblige the Prosecutor General’s Office to issue the Grand Duchess the appropriate certificates. However, the court decision of June 25 was not made in favor of the Romanovs. Mr. Lukyanov appealed it to the Moscow City Court, and it, unexpectedly for everyone, returned the case for a new trial.
Since at the court hearing to appeal the decision of the lower court, only the fact of its cancellation was announced, then one could only guess about the reasons that prompted this. The details of this truly sensational decision of the Moscow City Court became known only yesterday. It turned out that the Tver court, instead of carefully studying Ms. Romanova’s demand for rehabilitation, made a decision on an issue that the Grand Duchess had not even thought of going to court. Namely, we were talking about how justified the response of Ankudinov, an employee of the Prosecutor General’s Office, was. “The court decision must indicate the circumstances of the case established by the court; evidence on which the court's conclusions about these circumstances are based; reasons why the court rejects certain evidence; laws that govern the court. The court did not comply with these legal requirements when making its decision,” the Moscow City Court determined. But even when deciding on the legality of the actions of the Prosecutor General’s Office, in the opinion of the higher authority, the Tverskoy court nevertheless did this incorrectly. Thus, in the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office there were no “any references to the law and legal norms, and in violation of the law “On the Prosecutor’s Office” the appeal procedure was not specified.” The Tver court did not even bother to check the assertion of Lukyanov’s lawyer that the then Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov did not give Mr. Ankudinov the authority to deal with rehabilitation issues.
The Moscow City Court considered it necessary to remind its colleagues what should be understood by political repression. According to the legislation, in particular, they are recognized as “various coercive measures applied by the state for political reasons, in the form of deprivation of life or liberty, deportation from the country and deprivation of citizenship; sending into exile, other deprivation or restriction of the rights and freedoms of persons recognized as socially dangerous to the state or political system on class, social, national and religious grounds.” These “coercive measures,” as we know, were determined either by the judiciary or, without any trial or investigation at all, by party and administrative structures. This is exactly what happened in the case of the execution of Nicholas II and his family. The decision to execute was made by the Ural Regional Council, and then it was confirmed by the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Sverdlov, and the leader of the revolution, Vladimir Lenin himself.
Respecting the letter of the law “On Rehabilitation,” the Prosecutor General’s Office, in the opinion of the Moscow City Court, should have conducted a thorough inspection, drawn up a conclusion on it, issued a certificate of rehabilitation or drawn up a conclusion denying it and sent the case materials to the court. “In relation to persons accused of counter-revolutionary, especially dangerous state crimes in combination with other types of crimes, the review of cases is carried out in accordance with the general procedure established by the Code of Criminal Procedure,” notes the decision of the Moscow City Court, that is, the case of Nikolai Romanov and his family should be completely reviewed again.
The lawyer of the imperial house, German Lukyanov, asked the court to recognize some of the circumstances of the last days of Nicholas II’s life as “well-known and not requiring proof.” This includes the deprivation of the sovereign and members of his family of political rights, deprivation of their freedom of speech, freedom of the press, deprivation of the right to private property, freedom of conscience, deprivation of freedom itself and, ultimately, life. The Tver court refused this to Mr. Lukyanov without any explanation, and this is a very significant violation, in the opinion of the Moscow City Court.
Thus, neither the Prosecutor General’s Office nor the Tver Court not only made no efforts, but directly violated the obligations imposed on them by the law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression” to carefully check all the facts set out in the letter of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and relating to the circumstances of the arrest and subsequent execution of the latter Russian Emperor and his family. The tragic fate of Nicholas II during the Soviet totalitarian regime was repeated by millions of Russian and foreign citizens, many of them were rehabilitated, and no one has yet canceled the equality of everyone before the law and the court - be it a tsar or a simple peasant. The case of the rehabilitation of the last emperor will now be considered anew, and perhaps the members of the family of the last emperor, revered as saints by Orthodox Christians around the world, will no longer look like criminals in the eyes of modern Russia. Ekaterina BUTORINA |
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