European Lawmakers Condemn the Absence of the Rule of Law in Magnitsky Case

November 18, 2010

Law­mak­ers around the world paid trib­ute this week to Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer, who was arrest­ed and tor­tured to death a year ago in police cus­tody after he had exposed the embez­zle­ment of $230 mil­lion by Russ­ian state offi­cials. Euro­pean politi­cians said Magnitsky’s case has demon­strat­ed the pre­vail­ing dis­re­spect for human rights in Rus­sia and the hor­ri­ble price paid by the Russ­ian peo­ple for the absence of the rule of law. They fur­ther ques­tioned whether for­eign com­pa­nies should do busi­ness in Rus­sia while cor­rupt offi­cials are still not held accountable.

Speak­ing on the anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s death, the Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Jerzy Buzek called upon the Russ­ian lead­er­ship to pros­e­cute those respon­si­ble for the tor­ture and death of Mag­nit­sky. He said:

“I raised the case of Sergey Mag­nit­sky’s death dur­ing my meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Medvedev in June in Moscow. I urge once again the author­i­ties of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion at all appro­pri­ate lev­els to con­duct a thor­ough, impar­tial and cred­i­ble inves­ti­ga­tion in order to bring those involved in and respon­si­ble for the death of Sergey Mag­nit­sky to justice.” 

He con­tin­ued: “Sergey Mag­nit­sky was a brave man, who in his fight against cor­rup­tion was unjus­ti­fi­ably impris­oned under ruth­less con­di­tions and then died in jail with­out receiv­ing appro­pri­ate med­ical care. This is a shock­ing exam­ple show­ing that peo­ple fight­ing against cor­rup­tion in Rus­sia can feel nei­ther safe nor protected.”

As part of the cam­paign against the impuni­ty of the Russ­ian state offi­cials behind the per­se­cu­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the theft of $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, “Jus­tice for Sergei”, a 52-minute doc­u­men­tary by Dutch film­mak­ers, was pre­miered on 16 Novem­ber at the par­lia­ments of the UK, Ger­many, Esto­nia, Cana­da, the Unit­ed States and at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in Brussels.

The “Jus­tice for Sergei” film screen­ing event at the Ger­man Bun­destag was orga­nized by a mem­ber of the For­eign Affairs and Human Rights Com­mit­tees, Mari­na Schus­ter MdB. She said:

“The screen­ing is a com­mem­o­ra­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, as a sign for his courage, but also for his fam­i­ly. At the same time, the film denounces the lack of rule of law and the inhu­man treat­ment in Russ­ian pris­ons. We will not put aside the fate of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, but rather we will con­tin­ue in our quest for reconnaissance.”

Marieluise Beck MdB, Mem­ber of the Ger­man Bundestag’s For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, who attend­ed the film screen­ing on Tues­day said:

“The Mag­nit­sky case is not the only scan­dal in Russia’s judi­cia­ry… It affects Russia’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, call­ing for judi­cial reform and rule of law. It affects a coun­try which wants to be rec­og­nized as a mod­ern state and a val­ued glob­al part­ner. It affects a coun­try that has oblig­ed itself to the val­ues of the Coun­cil of Europe. Now it is up to Ger­man politi­cians, as well as Ger­man com­pa­nies which are gain­ing large prof­its in Rus­sia, to make it unmis­tak­ably clear that they see major obsta­cles in invest­ing in a coun­try in which it is hard­ly pos­si­ble to rely on legal pro­ceed­ings based on the rule of law.”

One year since the trag­ic death of Mag­nit­sky, no one has been charged or con­vict­ed in Rus­sia for Magnitsky’s false arrest and tor­ture in custody.

Ryszard Kalisz, Chair­man of Jus­tice and Human Rights Com­mit­tee of the Pol­ish SEJM, said:

“The way the inves­ti­ga­tion in this case has been car­ried out makes me won­der if the human rights in Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion are respect­ed. This case must be cleared with respect to inter­na­tion­al standards.”

Hei­di Hau­tu­la MEP (Fin­land), chair of the Euro­pean Parliament’s sub­com­mit­tee on human rights, orga­nized the screen­ing of Jus­tice for Mag­nit­sky at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. She said:

“The film is a touch­ing doc­u­men­tary about what can hap­pen to ordi­nary man in Rus­sia who sim­ply car­ries out his day to day job. I want­ed to air the film in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment so that Sergei did not die in vain; this trav­es­ty must result to improve­ments in account­abil­i­ty and to the hor­rif­ic prison con­di­tions in Russia.”

Kris­ti­ina Oju­land MEP (Esto­nia), who co-host­ed the screen­ing of Jus­tice for Sergei at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, said:

“Today we had a chance of see­ing the every­day real­i­ty in Rus­sia. Sergei Mag­nit­sky has become a sym­bol of tens, per­haps hun­dreds of peo­ple in Rus­sia of whom we have nev­er heard of, but who share a sim­i­lar fate.”

The host of the Jus­tice for Sergei event at the Eston­ian Par­lia­ment, and mem­ber of Eston­ian For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, Sil­ver Meikar MP said:

“Rus­sia is a great coun­try that has pro­duced many great per­son­al­i­ties. Alas, it is also a coun­try respon­si­ble for the pre­ma­ture ter­mi­na­tion of the lives of sev­er­al great peo­ple, such as Anna Politkovskaya, Natalya Estemiro­va, Stanislav Markelov and last year Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Those remark­able peo­ple were seek­ing for democ­ra­cy and jus­tice in Rus­sia, but all they found was mar­tyr­dom. The film “Jus­tice for Sergei” ought to be viewed keep­ing in mind that he is one of many, whose trag­ic death has remained unre­solved. Past years hun­dreds of jour­nal­ists and human rights activists have been killed in Russia.”

He con­tin­ued: “The fact that this film was pre­miered today in a num­ber of par­lia­ments around the world, among them the Par­lia­ment of the Repub­lic of Esto­nia, is sig­nif­i­cant — we must not allow the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky to fade into obscu­ri­ty. We have to remind the Russ­ian author­i­ties that the peo­ple of Rus­sia deserve the truth and jus­tice and that the world pub­lic does not turn the blind eye.” 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky (8 April 1972 – 16 Novem­ber 2009), an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, dis­cov­ered that Russ­ian police were involved in mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing his client’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds through the largest tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against the state offi­cials involved, and in ret­ri­bu­tion they arrest­ed him, detained him for 12 months with­out tri­al and tor­tured him to with­draw his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the sys­tem­at­ic phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture, Mag­nit­sky refused to change his tes­ti­mo­ny. He died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37 leav­ing a moth­er, wife and two children.

On 12 Novem­ber 2010, Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, the civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tion lead­ing the fight against cor­rup­tion glob­al­ly, posthu­mous­ly award­ed Sergei Mag­nit­sky its 2009 – 2010 Integri­ty Award rec­og­niz­ing Magnitsky’s “coura­geous fight” against cor­rup­tion as a “lone indi­vid­ual against the pow­er of an entire state.”

For more infor­ma­tion on the cor­rup­tion Mag­nit­sky dis­cov­ered and his tor­ture in Russ­ian police cus­tody visit:

http://ussian-untouchables.com

See Jus­tice for Sergei, a doc­u­men­tary about the life and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky at:

http://ww.justiceforsergei.com

Comments

• Link