Hermitage Releases List of 14 Russian Judges Who Illegally Refused Sergei Magnitsky’s Mother Access to Justice in 2011 in the Murder of Her Son in State Custody

December 29, 2011

Today, Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment pub­lished a list of 14 Russ­ian judges who ille­gal­ly refused Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er access to jus­tice through­out 2011 in the mur­der in Russ­ian state cus­tody of her son. The list will be sub­mit­ted to the U.S. Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion and the Coun­cil of Europe’s Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil of Euro­pean Judges. The list com­pris­es nine judges of the Moscow City Court, three judges of the Tver­skoi dis­trict court and two judges of the Bas­man­ny dis­trict court in Moscow.

Top­ping the list is Olga Egoro­va, chair of the Moscow City Court, who, on Novem­ber 18, 2011 reject­ed Mrs. Magnitskaya’s com­plaint seek­ing an inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion into her son’s death. Her denial was based on the asser­tion that there was no need for an inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion because the find­ings of state bod­ies could not be questioned. 

Anoth­er per­son on the list is Alex­ei Krivoruchko, judge of the Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court of Moscow who refused on August 30, 2011 to con­sid­er a com­plaint from Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya about the ille­gal­i­ty of the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of her son. As a result, the Inte­ri­or Min­istry pro­ceed­ed to pros­e­cute a man who had been dead for two years in spite of the fact that there is no legal prece­dent in mod­ern times for pros­e­cut­ing some­one after they are dead. Judge Krivoruchko is the same judge who sanc­tioned this their par­tic­i­pa­tion in year’s arrests of oppo­si­tion fig­ures Alex­ei Naval­ny and Sergei Udaltsov who protest­ed against vot­ing fraud in the Decem­ber 4^th Par­lia­men­tary elections.

Also on the list is Igor Alisov, recent­ly appoint­ed chair of the Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court of Moscow, who on Sep­tem­ber 12, 2011 reject­ed anoth­er com­plaint of Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya protest­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of her son after his death by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry. In March this year, the same Judge Alisov in an expe­dit­ed pro­ce­dure, closed to the pub­lic – and ignor­ing the evi­dence of Magnitsky’s col­leagues and jour­nal­ists – con­sid­ered the case about the theft of $230 mil­lion from the bud­get exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky pri­or to his arrest. Judge Alisov found one guilty par­ty in this crime — a job­less per­son Vyach­eslav Klheb­nikov, and rec­og­nized as “vic­tims” the tax offi­cials, who approved the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar ille­gal tax refunds in one day and began buy­ing $2 mil­lion apart­ments in Dubai short­ly after the ille­gal tax refunds were granted.

“On fif­teen dif­fer­ent occa­sions this year, Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er went to Russ­ian courts to uphold her rights and each time she faced a wall of injus­tice. This sto­ry shows that Russ­ian judges are not act­ing inde­pen­dent­ly and the judi­cial sys­tem in Rus­sia is not work­ing. The plight of Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya is a well-evi­denced exam­ple that Russ­ian courts are entire­ly polit­i­cal­ly direct­ed,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

Dur­ing the twelve months of 2011, Moscow courts have refused all fif­teen appli­ca­tions from Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya seek­ing jus­tice for her son. In par­tic­u­lar, the judges reject­ed her appli­ca­tion for an inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion of caus­es of her son’s death in Russ­ian police cus­tody and her requests for access to her son’s tis­sues archive, stat­ing there was no ground to doubt the find­ings of state appoint­ed experts. The judges also reject­ed her com­plaints against the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for the con­ceal­ment of her son’s case files, claim­ing she had no right to inspect those files. Sim­i­lar­ly, the judges refused her com­plaint against the Russ­ian Gen­er­al Prosecutor’s Office and Inte­ri­or Min­istry for the reopen­ing of the pros­e­cu­tion against her dead son and for the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence in the case. Final­ly, the judges refused to com­pel inves­ti­ga­tors to pros­e­cute high-rank­ing Russ­ian offi­cials for the ille­gal arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of her son in state custody. 

Judge Mush­niko­va of the Baman­ny Dis­trict Court in Moscow reject­ed two appli­ca­tions from Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya this year. On 19 July 2011, judge Mush­niko­va reject­ed an appli­ca­tion from Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya seek­ing access to her son’s tis­sues archive for an inde­pen­dent med­ical exam­i­na­tion. On 8 Decem­ber 2011, judge Mush­niko­va reject­ed Mrs. Magnitskaya’s com­plaint against the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for with­hold­ing case files from the rel­a­tives and sep­a­rat­ing the case against two med­ical per­son­nel of Butyr­ka deten­tion center.

Anoth­er judge of the Bas­man­ny Dis­trict Court Kar­pov on Decem­ber 13, 2011 reject­ed the law­suit from Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya seek­ing to com­pel the Russ­ian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee to open an inves­ti­ga­tion into the ille­gal arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of her son based on evi­dence she sub­mit­ted to the Russ­ian author­i­ties this Sep­tem­ber. In her appli­ca­tion, Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya named high-rank­ing offi­cials of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry, Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office, the FSB, the pen­i­ten­tiary sys­tem and judges.

On Decem­ber 9, 2011 Judge Kovalevskaya of the Tver­skoi Dis­trict Court refused the law­suit filed by Niko­lai Gorokhov, the lawyer for Mrs. Mag­nit­skaya, against the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry for the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence in the case against Sergei Mag­nit­sky by con­vict­ed crim­i­nals who Mag­nit­sky had exposed pri­or to his arrest for act­ing in col­lu­sion with law enforce­ment offi­cers to mis­ap­pro­pri­ate his client’s com­pa­nies and $230 mil­lion they had paid in tax­es to the Russ­ian government.

Final­ly, Moscow City Court Judge Seli­na, Abbazov, Gor­ba, Bon­darenko, Mar­tyno­va, Khatunt­se­va, Lovchev and Ish­mu­ra­to­va upheld the deci­sions of judges from Tver­skoi and Bass­man­ny dis­trict courts reject­ing all com­plaints of Magnitsky’s moth­er this year.

List of 14 Judges Who Denied Mag­nit­sky’s Moth­er Access to Jus­tice in 2011:
http://lawandorderinrussia.org/doc/list-of-judges‑e.pdf

Comments

• Link