From the paddy wagon to the court

“... she <...> disobeyed the lawful demands of the police officers, waved her arms and legs, and at the same time expressed obscene language at the police officers,” says the court decision in the case of one of the hundreds of people detained in recent weeks. Here is how the “disobedient” Anna Margolis, detained on February 24 at the Zamoskvoretsky court, describes the process of making this decision: “Judge Cheprasova, a giggling blonde in a robe, a calendar with kittens on the table, tired (the working day was long over), chattered at a wild speed. Of course they are to blame."

Now Moscow courts are overwhelmed with similar cases. Those detained at the protests are found guilty of offenses they did not commit and fined. Along the way, numerous violations are revealed. Thus, the case of Anna Margolis was considered simultaneously with the case of Maria Kokovkina, who was detained with her. They were both charged with offenses under two articles - 20.2 (violation of the established procedure for organizing or holding a meeting, meeting, demonstration, procession or picketing) and 19.3 (disobedience to a legal requirement of a police officer). At the same time, the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) does not imply the possibility of not only combining the consideration of cases against different people, but even combining two administrative cases of one person, which is not uncommon in the practice of our judges: as the judge of the Zamoskvoretsky Court Lyudmila Moskalenko said in response to lawyer Maxim Krupsky’s question about which of his client’s two cases will be heard first, “you have one flowing into the other.” Often in such cases it turns out that a person was charged with two offenses for approximately the same thing, although the Code of Administrative Offenses prohibits making two decisions on the same facts.

True, as Elena Pershakova, a lawyer for the Public Verdict Foundation, points out, since proceedings in administrative cases are conducted, as a rule, without a protocol, during an appeal in the Moscow City Court it will be impossible to prove that different cases were considered simultaneously. However, the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court No. 5 states that the law does not exclude the possibility of keeping a protocol, therefore Pershakova recommends filing a corresponding petition. This will avoid situations where the judge orally grants a request to call a witness, and then it turns out that the case contains a determination according to which the call of the witness was denied.

In addition, the European Court of Human Rights not so long ago actually equated the consideration of a case of an administrative offense to the consideration of a criminal case, which means that it is necessary to comply with the adversarial principle of the parties, therefore, keeping a protocol is necessary.

Judges are extremely reluctant to call witnesses and include photographs and videos in the case. Elena Pershakova believes that it is possible to convince the judge of the need to call witnesses by referring to the decision of the Supreme Court , which overturned the decision on an administrative offense and which clearly stated that the refusal of the stated request to call witnesses and attach video recordings is a violation of a number of articles. Sometimes, according to the lawyer, judges may limit themselves to calling relatives of the person being prosecuted as witnesses - “it is clear that this is done in order to then recognize their testimony as not trustworthy.

There are cases when people were unable to obtain the inclusion of their own written explanations. Pershakova recommends filing a special petition for the inclusion of a written explanation.

According to the lawyer, there were problems with the inclusion of the statement of the Commissioner for Human Rights, even in the presence of a copy certified by the Office of the Commissioner. Pershakova herself managed to attach a statement along with the Commissioner’s reports for each of the two days when the detentions took place at the Zamoskvoretsky court - February 21 and 24 - only with notarization.

However, refusal to call witnesses and include documents are phenomena already well known to those who have been observing the work of administrative detention courts in recent years. But there are also new techniques, for example, issuing uniform, stamped decisions, which may not take into account the details associated with a specific “offender.” “The judge has a template for the ruling, which says: ‘ so-and-so explained that he did not take part in the rally, did not shout slogans,’ explains Tatyana Glushkova, a lawyer for the organization Lawyers for Constitutional Rights and Freedoms. “And then a man comes to court who denies nothing.” He says: “Yes, I took part in the rally, I wanted to protest, I shouted “Freedom!”.” But when we receive the resolution, it still says that the person involved allegedly denied his participation in the rally. Sometimes it happens that a judge allows a defense lawyer into the process, but there is not a word about him in the ruling, as if there was no one in the process except the person involved and the judge. Such decisions were made, in particular, by Judge Irina Zubova from the Presnensky Court based on the results of the consideration of the cases of those detained on March 2 at the Ministry of Defense.”

A very common problem for citizens detained at protests who come to court is to get to a hearing on their case. Tatyana Glushkova tells how on March 7, on the eve of the holiday, she and her client came to the Tverskoy court, where at 15:10 judge Tatyana Neverova was supposed to consider their case, and heard from the bailiffs that the court closed at 14:00 (no documents from the bailiffs at this was not presented, referring to the oral order of the chairman of the court). When they managed to get into the building, it turned out that the court was working, but the hearings on administrative cases had not yet begun, including those scheduled for 10:00. “After 14:00 they stopped letting them all out of the court,” says Glushkova. — More precisely, of course, they let them out, but they said that if they left, they would not come back. The court continued to work, Judge Neverova was considering some kind of criminal case, and people continued to sit (and some even lie) in the corridor. Then the hearing on the criminal case ended, a long pause followed, and as a result, the hearing on administrative cases began at 19:00. There was no question of any public access to the court hearing: the bailiff only let in the person against whom the case was being heard and his defense attorney (if any), other people were not allowed.” The lawyer believes that all these obstacles were created specifically to prevent as many people as possible from getting caught in their own trials. WITH This is exactly what happened to someone : people left without waiting, and the court found them guilty of an offense in their absence. Glushkova notes that these people will not be able to prove that they sat in court for nine hours and left without waiting for the hearing: “The time of entry into court is recorded by the bailiffs, but the time of exit is recorded nowhere.”

There are often cases when a person does not reach the court, and the hearing takes place without him - he is simply not notified about when the hearing will take place. Mikhail Uspensky, who was detained at the Zamoskvoretsky court on February 24, says that he never received a summons: “The trial took place without me on March 3. I learned this from a call to the court. Since the resolution has not yet arrived by mail, I suspect that they used the wrong address from the protocols [drawn up at the police department, despite the fact that Uspensky indicated the correct address in the explanation to the protocol]. Interestingly, the court’s website contains data on the progress of both cases. If the transfer of the case to the judge and preparation for consideration are marked at different times, then the judge considered the merits of both cases simultaneously - at 10:00. Moreover, together with several other cases of other detainees.”

“Most of the judges do not make unnecessary gestures to notify people, do not send any subpoenas: you yourself did not want to come and find out the date of the hearing - your problem. And it’s almost impossible to get through to the courts,” warns Tatyana Glushkova and recommends that before going to the meeting itself, familiarize yourself with the case materials - then at the same time you can find out the date of the meeting: “In this case, either the person is immediately told the date when his case will be considered case, or they ask him to leave a phone number, after which they call back and inform him. Ideally, a person who wants to get acquainted with the case materials should come to the office or to a specific judge - usually the cases are already assigned to the judges - receive the materials, familiarize themselves, take photographs, make notes and leave. Sometimes this is what happens. Sometimes this is accompanied by a long wait in the corridor - the visitor is explained that the judge is busy and it is not yet possible to review the documents. Sometimes they say that it will be possible to get acquainted with the materials only after the meeting date has been set - which, of course, is not true.”

Among the innovations in recent weeks is the willingness of some judges to consider cases based on obligations to appear that people write to the police department. Tatyana Glushkova notes that even if the obligation specifies a specific date and time of appearance, it is entered by police officers absolutely arbitrarily, without coordination with the courts. And if earlier the dates specified in the obligations to appear did not play any role, now several judges considered cases on the dates specified in these documents, believing that the person brought to administrative responsibility was properly notified. Such situations, according to Glushkova, give rise to new problems: “at the police department, all detainees, no matter how many there are, are issued obligations to appear at the same time, and when they arrive, they are told that their cases will be considered during the day , after which people can sit in the court corridor all day, not even being able to form a line on their own, because the judge calls them at his own discretion.”

Ultimately, both the lack of information about the meetings and the refusal to allow the public to attend the meetings are examples of neglect of the most important principle - the principle of transparency and openness of legal proceedings. This also includes the refusal to read out the operative part of the decision: thus, the above-mentioned judge of the Zamoskvoretsky Court, Natalya Cheprasova, may not return to the courtroom after the decision is made, but transfer a copy of the decision to the lawyer through an assistant. “Generally speaking, this is a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention, which guarantees the right to a fair trial,” says Glushkova. — One of the elements of a fair trial is the right to a public hearing, an integral part of which, in turn, is the obligation of the court to make its verdict public. In a situation where the decision is not announced at the court hearing, and neither the Tverskoy, nor Zamoskvoretsky, nor Presnensky courts post their decisions on websites (although they should), the public is actually deprived of the opportunity to find out what decision was made.”

However, sometimes the meeting is unexpectedly made open to correspondents from individual TV channels, and in violation of the procedure. Despite the fact that, as a rule, video recording of court hearings is prohibited, NTV correspondents came to the hearing in the case of Sergei Parkhomenko. As Pershakova says, “We didn’t say that they couldn’t attend, but we tried to ensure that the judge and the court observed some decency and procedure. NTV representatives should have asked us for permission to film, the court should have interviewed everyone, after which the judge would have made a decision at his own discretion. If everything had been done this way, we would have no claims against the court at all, since the process is open. But here they came and immediately began filming, and when asked on what basis, they answered that the press secretary of the court gave them permission. They didn't have a document. The spokeswoman said: “If you think you are being filmed incorrectly, cover yourself with a piece of paper.”

Let us recall that the detentions themselves at the Zamoskvoretsky court on February 21 and 24 were largely caused by the fact that people who wanted to hear the verdict in the Bolotnaya case were not allowed into the building, which in itself is a violation of the principle of openness. However, according to Pershakova, “the judges absolutely do not want to hear considerations that during the announcement of the verdict in the Bolotnaya case in the Zamoskvoretsky court, transparency was not ensured. Moreover, in one meeting the judge, in response to this consideration, said: “Can you imagine that a thousand people could fit in this office?” Thus, the blame is immediately shifted to the people who came. It doesn’t occur to judges that there are normal ways to ensure publicity, such as video broadcasting.”