Choice of prosecutor

Yuri Chaika may resign soon

Yuri Chaika may soon leave the post of Prosecutor General of Russia, which he took only a year ago . As Vremya Novostey learned from unofficial sources, the other day he allegedly submitted an application to President Putin with a request to be relieved of his position at his own request. It was not possible to obtain official confirmationor refutation of this information yesterday. Mr. Chaika himself has been in Spain on an official visit since Monday.

However, in the Prosecutor General's Office itself and in the Moscow prosecutor's office, employees actively began discussing this news on Monday evening. And yesterday many, primarily senior officials of these departments, were in a state of shock. Indeed, recently, prosecutors' offices at all levels in the country have begun to prepare for a large-scale structural shake-up in connection with the recently approved reform of the criminal legal system. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported, according to the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Law “On the Prosecutor's Office” adopted in May, a new and essentially independent body will be created in the fall - the Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor's Office, and the prosecutor's office itself will lose its most important powers - rights independently conduct criminal investigations and oversee the legality of the preliminary investigation by other law enforcement agencies. If Mr. Chaika leaves, this reform will be complemented by an equally large-scale personnel purge.

According to our sources, the prosecutor general allegedly made the decision to resign because of disagreement with the planned reform. He himself never spoke openly about this, only occasionally noting in comments that the changes being discussed at that time needed to be carefully “weighed” and “balanced.” However, when the bill was already at the last stage of approval, the position of the Prosecutor General’s Office and, obviously, Mr. Chaika himself was voiced in the Federation Council by his deputy Sabir Kekhlerov. He then stated that the planned reform “contradicts the Constitution and international norms”, that in this way an “experiment on people” would be carried out, which would lead to large-scale and massive violations of the rights of citizens. As far as is known, Mr. Chaika also spoke personally with Vladimir Putin about this matter. However, the Prosecutor General's Office failed to stop the reform. As a result, our sources believe, Yuri Chaika made his decision. Moreover, it can be explained not only by disagreement with the reform itself, but also by the role assigned to the prosecutor general in it. After all, after the reform is completed, the Prosecutor General’s Office itself will become, among other law enforcement agencies, in many ways a nominal body.

His department did not know exactly when exactly Mr. Chaika submitted his application - either right before he left for Spain, or at the end of last week. During the visit, the Russian Prosecutor General was supposed to discuss with the Prosecutor General of the Kingdom Candido Conde-Pumpido the issue of concluding a bilateral interdepartmental agreement on cooperation, including on the fight against terrorism, corruption and other especially dangerous types of crimes. That is, it turned out that Mr. Chaika had to negotiate something that very soon his department will no longer be doing.

One way or another, but, according to our sources, after submitting the application, the presidential administration allegedly asked Mr. Chaika “not to rush” and not to insist on an early resignation, at least until the issue with his successor was resolved and the head of the Investigative Committee was appointed. It is expected that Mr. Chaika's fate will be decided before the end of June.

So far, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, two possible candidates for new prosecutor general are being considered. These are the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Volga Federal District, Alexander Konovalov, and the Deputy Prosecutor General for the Southern Federal District, Ivan Sydoruk (in the 90s, he headed the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office).

Mr. Konovalov, like Vladimir Putin, graduated from the law department of St. Petersburg University. Of course, Plenipotentiary Representative Konovalov (he is 39 years old) did not find him a student, but he is familiar with Dmitry Medvedev, at that time a law faculty teacher.

Before leaving for the summer vacation, the Senate, as our sources believe, should also approve the candidacy for the post of chairman of the Investigative Committee. The most likely candidate is considered to be Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Bastrykin (he took this post last fall), who once studied at St. Petersburg University with Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General's Office has already begun active preparations for reform in connection with the creation of the Investigative Committee. According to unofficial information, the issue of replacing a number of heads of the Main Directorate of International Legal Cooperation has been resolved. In addition, the personnel department of the Prosecutor General's Office has already prepared a draft of a new staffing schedule for the Moscow prosecutor's offices, which was discussed yesterday at a meeting in the city prosecutor's office. According to the project, from September 6, conditions for the work of the Investigative Committee will be created at each prosecutor's office: investigative departments of the Investigative Committee will be formed in the district prosecutor's offices, investigative departments will be formed in the district prosecutor's offices, and investigative and control-methodological departments will be formed in the city prosecutor's office itself with supervisory functions over the actions of "lower-level" officials. investigators.

Former Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent yesterday, was not surprised by the information about Mr. Chaika’s possible resignation: “I think that this would be quite logical on his part. After all, he, as the Prosecutor General, understands that this idea of ​​creating an Investigative Committee and removing the police investigation from the supervision of the prosecutor’s office is a fatal blow. On the other hand, he did not take a tough position at the time. It was necessary to act and speak more firmly, and as soon as this idea arose, to leave from the very beginning. His positions were already quite shaky then. As for the possible appointment of Mr. Sydoruk, I can say that he is a very worthy person - he also has St. Petersburg roots, and is tough in his positions, so I am not surprised. Konovalov at one time fell into this high orbit, being a prosecutor, he gained experience in political work and in the executive branch. If he is appointed, it will be worthy, because his candidacy was considered even when Ustinov “left” last year.”

Ekaterina KARACHEVA, Alexey GRISHIN