Kafkaesque process

On February 18, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow was supposed to begin a lawsuit against Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and the head of this fund, Bill Browder.

At the entrance to the court, foreign journalists and cameramen are crowding. Full of correspondents - and near the courtroom, where Judge Igor Alisov holds preliminary hearings behind closed doors. The journalists on duty at the door barely have time to jump back when a young prosecutor in a blue uniform and a lawyer in a black jacket with a large briefcase literally run out of the courtroom like scalded. The prosecutor runs down, the lawyer up. Fighting off journalists, he only manages to shout: “I'm busy. I'm on duty today." Maybe he does not speak to reporters because he is ashamed to participate in the trial of the dead? And if you are ashamed, why not refuse?

It turned out that this lawyer represents the interests of Bill Browder. Magnitsky is defended by the second - Nikolai Gerasimov. “I was entrusted with the defense of Sergei Magnitsky by the director of Legal Advice No. 5, where I work,” Gerasimov explained to me over the phone. “I wanted to refuse, but it turned out that I could be subject to disciplinary action.” By whom? Gerasimov could be fined by the Moscow Bar Association. It was there that the mother of Sergei Magnitsky turned back in January with a request to Moscow lawyers not to participate in the posthumous trial of her son. She does not understand why Deputy Prosecutor General Grin sent the case against her son to court without her consent. But not only Natalya Magnitskaya - all more or less sane lawyers do not understand: how can a dead person be judged if there is no will of his family? The meaning of the decision of the Constitutional Court is distorted, which ruled that the resumption of criminal prosecution and the trial after death are possible subject to the consent of the family of the deceased. But no, in the Tverskoy Court everything will be the opposite: the process will take place against the will of the relatives. Can self-respecting lawyers participate in such a profanation of justice, in this Kafkaesque process elevated to a superlative degree?

Judge Alisov, of course, cannot refuse, he has his own problems - in April last year he lost his post as chairman of this very Tver court, but for some reason was left as a judge. But why should a lawyer be afraid? Is the fear of disciplinary action worse than the loss of reputation? And why are his colleagues and members of that same Chamber of Advocates silent? What are they afraid of?