Last Words by Sergey Magnitskiy in Russian Court Reveal Human and Legal Rights Abuse

November 20, 2009

Last Words by Sergey Mag­nit­skiy in Russ­ian Court Reveal Human and Legal Rights Abuse

20 Novem­ber 2009 – The last words by lawyer Sergey Mag­nit­skiy, made in a Russ­ian court, reveal vio­la­tions of his legal and human rights in breach of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms and Russ­ian law.

In his last pub­lic state­ment, Sergey Mag­nit­skiy named the vio­la­tions of Arti­cle 3 of the Con­ven­tion – “Pro­hi­bi­tion of tor­ture” – that states that “no one shall be sub­ject­ed to tor­ture or to inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment,” and of Arti­cle 6 – “Right to a fair tri­al” – that spec­i­fies the right for “ade­quate time and facil­i­ties for the prepa­ra­tion of his defence”. He accused the court of con­don­ing these vio­la­tions and refus­ing him his basic human dignity.

Sergey Mag­nit­skiy con­demned the legal abus­es and the inhu­man and degrad­ing treat­ment he was sub­ject­ed to in the court­room: he was kept in a cage and chained. He deplored the fact that the basic prin­ci­ple of the equal­i­ty between the defence and pros­e­cu­tion before the court was vio­lat­ed and stat­ed that the par­tic­i­pa­tion of his defence lawyers was sim­ply used to cre­ate the appear­ance of him hav­ing legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in court. He denounced the fact that the judge refused to pro­vide him and his lawyers with ade­quate time and facil­i­ties to pre­pare defence objections.

The state­ment was made in front of Fed­er­al Judge of the Tver­skoi Moscow Dis­trict Court Stashina, Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko, Pros­e­cu­tor Burov and Defense Lawyers Kharitonov and Ore­sh­niko­va, last Thurs­day, 12 Novem­ber 2009. Fol­low­ing his state­ment, Sergey Mag­nit­skiy asked his lawyers to with­draw from sub­se­quent par­tic­i­pa­tion in the court proceeding.

The judge refused to accept the with­draw­al of Sergey Magnitskiy’s defence. At the end of the court hear­ing, judge Stashina sanc­tioned the peti­tion by Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko to pro­long Sergey Magnitskiy’s deten­tion until 26 Novem­ber 2009. This would have been two days longer than the max­i­mum peri­od of deten­tion with­out tri­al (1 year) pos­si­ble under the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code. The one year lim­it for Sergey Magnitskiy’s deten­tion was due to expire on 24 Novem­ber 2009.

Sergey Mag­nit­skiy, a lawyer and father of two chil­dren, died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 in a Moscow prison.

Last Words by Sergey Magnitskiy
at the Moscow Court Hearing
That Sanc­tioned the Pro­lon­ga­tion of his Deten­tion with­out Tri­al Beyond One Year
(beyond max­i­mum pos­si­ble peri­od under the Russ­ian legal procedure)

Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court of Moscow
12 Novem­ber 2009 

Below is the last state­ment made by Sergey Mag­nit­skiy. It was made on 12 Novem­ber 2009 in a Moscow court fol­low­ing the rejec­tion of peti­tions and requests sub­mit­ted by him and his defence lawyers, seek­ing his release from pre-tri­al detention. 

“I would like to make a state­ment, name­ly that this pro­ceed­ing vio­lates the prin­ci­ple of equal­i­ty between the pros­e­cu­tion and defence, because no one has giv­en me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to under­stand the per­spec­tive of the Pros­e­cu­tor and what this per­spec­tive is based upon.

I would also like to declare that I refuse to allow fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion of my defence lawyers in this pro­ceed­ing because when I met my defence lawyer, Kharitonov, yes­ter­day, and we dis­cussed the argu­ments to be used by him and myself dur­ing this pro­ceed­ing, it was based on the mate­ri­als avail­able to us that had been sub­mit­ted [by the inves­ti­ga­tion] to the court. Today new mate­ri­als have been sub­mit­ted [by inves­ti­ga­tors] to the court, and the court has accept­ed them and reject­ed pro­vid­ing me and my lawyers with the time we require to pre­pare my defence, fol­low­ing a review of these addi­tion­al materials.

The Con­ven­tion on Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms stip­u­lates the right to an ade­quate time to pre­pare one’s defence. At the cur­rent time, my defence lawyers are not pre­pared to speak at this hear­ing on the grounds I have stat­ed. I believe that in such cir­cum­stances there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty for them to pro­vide me with pro­fes­sion­al legal assis­tance and that is why I refuse to allow their par­tic­i­pa­tion in today’s court hearing.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I myself refuse to par­tic­i­pate in today’s court hear­ing, because today I have pre­pared, instead, to take part in a court hear­ing based on a dif­fer­ent foun­da­tion. My right, which is pro­tect­ed by the Con­ven­tion on Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms, for ade­quate time and facil­i­ties to pre­pare my defence has been brazen­ly vio­lat­ed, and all peti­tions that I sub­mit­ted to the court request­ing that this right be ensured, have sim­ply been ignored by the court. That is why I am not going to speak today, and I refuse to take part in and lis­ten to today’s court hearing.”

Addi­tion­al Quotes from the State­ments Made by Sergey Mag­nit­skiy in Court:

• “Part 1 of Arti­cle 19, and Part 3 of Arti­cle 123 of the Russ­ian Con­sti­tu­tion, and Arti­cle 15 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code of Rus­sia estab­lish the prin­ci­ple of equal­i­ty between the defence and pros­e­cu­tion before the court. How­ev­er, in con­trast to the pros­e­cu­tor who rep­re­sents the accus­ing par­ty, I am placed in the court­room in a cage that is sim­i­lar to the cages used to keep wild ani­mals. Plac­ing me in this cage vio­lates my right to be treat­ed like a human being, and shows no respect for my hon­our and dig­ni­ty, which is essen­tial to any human being and which is guar­an­teed by Arti­cle 21 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. My right not to be sub­ject to inhu­man and degrad­ing treat­ment which under­mines human dig­ni­ty, stip­u­lat­ed by Arti­cle 3 of the Con­ven­tion on Human Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms, has been violated.”
• “Ear­li­er, when I was shown the mate­ri­als, I was chained with one hand. I had to use anoth­er hand to turn pages and make notes from them. This is sim­ply a degrad­ing abuse of human dig­ni­ty. I request to be pro­vid­ed with the mate­ri­als in a man­ner that is pre­scribed by the Instruc­tions for the Pro­cess­ing of Infor­ma­tion In Court Proceedings.”

The court hear­ing was held in Moscow Tver­skoi dis­trict court on 12 Novem­ber 2009 at 16:30 – 18:40.

Judge Stashina approved the peti­tion by Inves­ti­ga­tor Silchenko to pro­long Sergey Magnitskiy’s deten­tion until 26 Novem­ber 2009.

The one year time lim­it for pre-tri­al deten­tion, set out under the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code, would have expired, on 24 Novem­ber 2009, two days ear­li­er than the exten­sion date. 

For fur­ther information:
Her­mitage Capital

44 207 4401777
info@hermitagefund.com

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