Moscow Bar Association Rejects Order from the Russian Interior Ministry to Appoint Lawyers to the Magnitsky Family Against Their Will

January 27, 2012

The Moscow City Bar Association has sent a letter to Interior Ministry Investigator Boris Kibis stating that his order to appoint a state lawyer to represent Magnitsky family is in breach of the Russian law. The letter states that Russian law does not allow state bodies to assign counsel after a defendant’s death.

“Article 51 of the Russian Criminal Procedural Code does not allow the state to appoint counsel to the representatives of a deceased defendant in a criminal case,” said Ms Zhivina, Chairwoman of the Moscow City Bar Association in a letter sent to investigator Kibis.

Mrs Zhivina also states that the investigator has overstepped his authority by appointing a particular lawyer to the Magnitsky family against their will.

“The lawyer E. Khokhobaya can not be appointed as under Article 51 of the Criminal Procedural Code, the Moscow City Bar Association can not be asked by investigators to assign a specific named lawyer.”

On Monday, relatives of the late Sergei Magnitsky wrote to Henry Reznik, President of the Moscow City Bar Chamber, asking for protection from the Interior Ministry’s attempts to appoint a lawyer to the family against their will.

The mother of Sergei Magnitsky, Mrs Natalia Magnitskaya, said:
“I trust my lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov and refuse to accept his replacement that investigators who are clearly biased are trying to impose upon me. I am asking the Moscow Bar Association to inform all lawyers about my request and not to accept the instructions from the Interior Ministry in this case which has been reopened posthumously against my son in violation of the law.”

Natalia Magnitskaya said that the actions of the investigators show a conflict of interest because the officers investigating her son are the same officers who her son had exposed for stealing $230 million of budget funds from the state and the subsequent cover up of this crime:

“The haste with which the Deputy General Prosecutor and other investigative authorities are operating in this case and their actions in breach of the legal procedure is a demonstration of their conflict of interest and their bias towards those officers who my son had implicated in serious criminal activities.”

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