Home misfortunes

Who lives in the house

Russian opposition are increasingly forced to sit at home. The first to get under house arrest was Sergey Udaltsov back in February 2013 - since then, about him and his “Left Front” movement, almost nothing was heard. A year later, in February 2014, the apartment of Alexei Navalny turned into his personal prison. The method tested on leaders became popular with the organs: a month ago,Konstantin Yankauskas , a deputy of the Moscow municipal district Zyuzino, was placed under house arrest. Previously, the same measure of restraint was elected for two accused in the “swamp case” - Alexandra Naumova and Nikolai Caucasian .

But under house arrest, not only political activists are sitting. According to the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court , in 2013, Russian courts considered 3455 petitions for the appointment of house arrest, of which 3086 (89%) were satisfied. With even greater ease, the courts extend this type of arrest: out of 5194 the relevant petitions, 4869 (94%) were satisfied.

Official data show that in recent years, such a preventive measure has been applied more and more often: in 2009, the courts have sent only 146 people under house arrest, but since then significant growth began.

In a country that has survived mass repressions, where more than 600 thousand people are still in prisons, house arrest is perceived as a soft measure. For political activists, who in their apartments are cut off from any public life, this punishment can not be called sparing. Nevertheless, the growth of the share of domestic arrests should rather talk about the humanization of the Russian judicial police system. To figure out how the house arrest actually takes place and how it is arranged from the point of view of the law, the ATS-info spoke with lawyers and relatives of sitting at home.

At home by law

The premises for house arrest are regulated by Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure . It is primarily stipulated in it that this measure of restraint is elected "if it is impossible to use another, softer." For ordinary people, this is a non -departure subscription (the softest measure), someone’s guarantee or making a cash collateral.

The basis for the use of any preventive measure should be information indicating that a person can hide or prevent the establishment of truth - sometimes this is also called “influence the work of the investigation” or “put pressure on witnesses”.

“The more reasons to believe that a person will behave unscrupulous during the investigation and the court, in combination with the severity of the prosecution, the more grounds for choosing a more stringent preventive measure,” explains Vadim Kluvgan lawyer.

When applying for house arrest, the court must “check the presence of all the actual grounds that the investigator refers to, asking for a specific or suspect such a preventive measure,” says the clubman. The court must also establish the validity of the prosecution and make sure that it is impossible to ensure the bona fide behavior of the accused with a milder extent. Thus, the court can satisfy the investigator’s application only if the arguments of the investigation are confirmed by real facts.

Finally, house arrest can still be used as a replacement of detention - if the potential inhabitant of the pre -trial detention center is sick with one of the serious diseases listed in the government’s decree “ On the medical examination of the suspects or accused of committing crimes ”.

These are the legislative and regulatory framework for the application of house arrest.

“In practice, everything is not necessary as it should be. And unfortunately, often it is not at all like that, ”says Kluvgant.

In real life, the courts regularly elect a strict measure of restraint by the accused by simply listening to the considerations of the investigators and immediately recognizing them reasonable. And the house arrest, which is the clubman insisted on - a strict measure: "This is the second in stiffness measure of restraint after prison arrest."

What can not be done at home

Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure lists the prohibitions and restrictions that can be imposed on a person under house arrest. These are only four points:

• going beyond the dwelling in which he lives

• Communication with certain persons

• Sending and receiving postal and telegraphs

• The use of communications and information and telecommunication network "Internet"

The court may vary the severity of house arrest by applying all these points at once or by choosing only some of them. Subsequently, the court may change the conditions of house arrest at the request of the prisoner himself, his lawyer or even the investigator conducting the case.

Despite the fact that there are only four restrictional and consistent points, the level of state control over the life of a home prisoner can be very serious. “The list is closed, exhausting, as lawyers say. But the interpretations inside the item can be arbitrarily wide, each has a scope for interpretations, ”the clubman explains.

In the framework of the “swamp business”, the clubman represented the interests of Nikolai Caucasian , who was transferred from pre-trial detention center under house arrest after a complaint of the Commissioner for Human Rights to the Presidium of the Supreme Court-in particular, due to serious health problems. When making such a decision, the court allowed the Caucasian to visit medical institutions - but only if he has appropriate “medical readings” and an appointment with a doctor. But the inspector of the FSIN, who oversees the person during house arrest, and the prisoner himself can differently understand what these “medical testimonies” are.

Due to the free interpretation of the points of this article of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the courts impose completely different types of restrictions and prohibitions on different accused.

“One accused is much softer for the accusation, despite the fact that the accusation itself is quite serious, they are allowed to visit stores and all sorts of other liberties, and the other is much more tough, which does not allow anything at all - sit at home and that's it,” says the Livganes.

Shopping campaigns were allowed by Evgenia Vasilyeva, the former head of the Department of Property Relations of the Ministry of Defense, accused in the case of Oboronservis. And Sergey Udaltsov, when extending house arrest, the court refused everything, including a visit to the doctor - they only allowed to vote in the elections. “This is precisely the variability of the interpretation, and it is far from always possible to trace the logic [of the court] stiring out of the circumstances of a particular case,” comments the Commentes.

When prohibiting “communication with certain persons” their circle can be interpreted extremely freely. Navalny , according to his lawyer Vadim Kobzev, was forbidden to communicate with everyone except the inspectors of the Federal Penitentiary Service, an investigator leading the case, lawyers and close relatives. And Konstantin Yankauskus is forbidden to communicate only with other accused and witnesses in the case. His wife Olga Gorelik says that Yankauskas can even lead the voters in the apartment - he is still a deputy of the Zyuzinsky municipal assembly.

There are also cases when judges come up with prohibitions that do not fit into the list listed in Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure , and this despite the fact that, according to the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court , explaining the application of various preventive measures, the courts do not have the right to introduce prohibitions and restrictions that are not directly provided for by this article. But this did not prevent Judge Arthur Karpov from prohibiting Navalny to comment on the circumstances of his criminal case in the media. The appellation authority, according to Kobzev, was upheld by this ban.

The ban on accessing the Internet does not imply a ban on using a computer: as Olga Gorelik explains, no one forbade her husband to play computer games, type texts or watch a movie - if the computer is not connected to the Internet. The blog of the Zyuzino headquarters and Yankauskas’s personal blog now leads Gorelik, but in fact, there are no legal ways to check whether her husband actually enjoys the Internet or telephone.

Hand to foot: how the bracelet works

When a person is placed under house arrest, a special electronic bracelet is put on his leg, which allows you to control the whereabouts of GLONASS/GPS arrested through satellite systems. Information about the location of the bracelet falls on a special apparatus, which the FSIN employee installs the arrested in the apartment, and the device, in turn, transfers information to the remote control to the inspectors.

Dmitry Dubrovin, a lawyer of Alexandra Naumova , says that if a person with a bracelet is moved away from the signal source, the inspectors are triggered by the alarm. After that, they immediately call the arrested home and find out where he is. Sometimes they can call at night.

Sometimes inspectors come to the house. According to Olga Gorelik, an employee of the FSIN comes to Yankauskus without warning about once a week, and a variety of things can be interested in him.

The Yankauskas bracelet is weakly signal from the bedroom: two walls are separated from the apparatus located in the living room. The inspector who suddenly came with the check, reading the testimony of the apparatus, asked where the arrested was at night. In the end, the inspector was convinced that this was not a violation of the regime, but the error of the device, says Gorelik.

At some point, the bracelet may end in validity-the battery sits down, and then it should be replaced. At some point, Alexandra Naumova was changed to significantly smaller in size, and soon he began to rub his leg strongly, causing pain. It happened on Friday. The inspector was in the country and, as the defender of Naumova Dmitry Borko said, refused to come, claiming that the warehouse with other bracelets would open only on Monday. Upon learning that Naumova was under house arrest, doctors refused to come. In the end, Borko still managed to convince the inspector to come on Sunday, and the Naumova bracelet was changed - the warehouse of bracelets, apparently, works without weekends and breaks.

Exit beyond the outskirts

As a rule, on all necessary trips - for example, to the court or to the doctor - the arrested person must be accompanied by an employee of the FSIN, who comes for him by car. But as the lawyer Dubrovin notes, "it happens that you can move independently by the metro at the direction of the FSIN employees, if it is not possible to pick up by car." Lawyer Krewavgant said that the Caucasian, through the fault of accompanying employees, was more than once late for the court, while he had to write explanations, since such “violations” were “fraught with the fact that house arrest may turn into prison again. This is a frequent phenomenon. "

In the event of emergency services, like an ambulance, the arrested should immediately contact the inspector and say that he used the phone. Regarding any necessary departure, the arrested must contact the employee that controls him. The employee may refuse, and in this case, the arrested is forced to apply for permission to the court. For example, Nikolai Caucasian needed to visit the pool - at the direction of doctors. But in practice, this was not easy to do.

“The court had to present complete information: what kind of institution it was, where is this pool, at what address, in what days and hours it will go. And exactly these days and watches the judge gave permission to visit this particular pool, ”says Vadim Kluvgan.

Even after receiving this permission, it is still necessary to contact the inspectors with a request for escort. “Or,” the club continues, “the court must directly indicate that it is allowed to ride on their own, but, as we guess, the judges are probably not very willing to take such responsibility in most cases, although there are exceptions.”

In the case of the house arrest of Navalny , as the lawyer Kobzev says, the penal inspection refused to carry him somewhere except the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor's Office and the courts. Even if the investigator allowed the clinic, accompanied by the inspection, the FSIN officers said: we are not a taxi, we will not lead the clinic. “This is not resolved in any way, and in that particular situation they were not taken anywhere,” the lawyer recalls.

Home comfort is worse than prisons?

And by virtue of free interpretation of laws by judges, and because of serious gaps in the legislation, house arrest is sometimes worse than a pre-trial detention center. Apparently, it was no coincidence that it was house arrest that began to apply to opposition politicians: special restrictions concern the political rights of such prisoners.

In anticipation of the elections of the Moscow Mayor , Sergei Udaltsov , in fact, the authorities forbade even to indulge. At first, the Mosgorisbirk refused to accept documents without the presence of the candidate himself, and the Investigative Committee did not allow Udaltsov to leave the apartment to visit the election commission. Then they nevertheless accepted the documents, but the election officials said that the nomination of citizens under house arrest was not resolved in the candidates for elected positions and refused to register Udaltsov. Konstantin Yankauskas had accepted documents for nomination with a candidate to the Moscow City Duma - his wife and lawyer of the party of progress were brought a certified statement - but they refused the same pretext of registration. At the same time, people who are in the pre -trial detention center, by law, can participate in the elections: in 2013, for example, as a candidate for deputies of the Rostov Legislative Assembly, the arrested journalist Alexander Tolmachev was registered , and the Dagestan politician Nukhov in 2007, without leaving the pre -trial detention center, entered the second round in the election of the head of the Dakhadaevsky district.

A serious discrimination of home prisoners compared to conventional prisoners revealed the defense of Navalny : during house arrest, they often do not allow walks, while in investigative insulators, and in prisons, and in the colonies they are provided. In the already mentioned decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, walks are mentioned as a possible basis for going beyond the apartment. But in practice, according to Kobzev, “they refuse these walks,” and the refusal is not motivated in any way. Evgenia Vasilyeva, however, was allowed to walk - first for an hour, and then three.

In the procedural and legal trap, those under house arrest fall at the moment when the investigation transferred the case to the prosecutor’s office, but it has not yet gone to court. The prosecutor of the request for trips does not consider anywhere, and the investigator is no longer engaged in this case. As a result, at this stage of consideration of the case to the same clinic, the arrested person will not be able to go in principle.

Navalny turned out to be a completely strange legal situation. The ban on communication with someone, except for a hardly limited list of persons, is imposed on Navalny as part of the Yves Rocher . But at the same time, many criminal cases are underway against Navalny. Some courts have already taken place, and Navalny was forced to speak in them, answer the questions of plaintiffs, lawyers and judges - i.e. To communicate with many people who are not included in the list of people permitted to him. Navalny’s lawyers in the courts mention the existing ban, but “the courts consider all this nonsense, they say: this is one thing, and this is another,” says Kobzev.

In general, the practice of house arrest that develops in Russia is much stricter than, for example, in Western Europe. According to the lawyer of the clamp, in the EU states, “Home arrest means first of all that a person should not leave, should be at home. But there are no such severe restrictions and prohibitions on it. It can be forbidden, for example, to communicate with the persons involved in the proceedings on the case, this is quite logical, but no one will prohibit communicating with any people at all, as we do all right. It is unlikely that the suspect will have difficulties with a visit, for example, a doctor or priest. ”

According to the law, house arrest in Russia, like any other preventive measure , should be applied only in extreme cases, as a safety instrument - if there is a threat that the suspect will hide or interfere with the investigation and justice. But in our reality, a forced sitting on the couch is turned into a mockery and punishment, which is superimposed by the state even before the guilt of the arrested pleads, but the court.