US Senator Cardin Submits Unprecedented Legislation Dramatically Expanding the Magnitsky Sanctions in Russia

May 20, 2011

Today, Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin (D‑Md.) sub­mit­ted a new ver­sion of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion which would impose sanc­tions against Russ­ian offi­cials who per­pe­trate human rights abus­es and face no accountability.

The new bill enti­tled: “The Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2011” fol­lows on from the pre­vi­ous “Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Act of 2010” which was sub­mit­ted in the 111^th Con­gress. Like the pre­vi­ous bill, this law will specif­i­cal­ly can­cel visas and deny entry into the US to all those who played a role in the false arrest, tor­ture and death of 37-year old anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and those involved in the cor­rup­tion and thefts of pub­lic funds that he had exposed. The new ver­sion of the law also applies sanc­tions to Russ­ian offi­cials who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cov­er-up of those indi­vid­u­als who tor­tured and killed Mr. Magnitsky.

In addi­tion, the new Mag­nit­sky Act takes a dra­mat­ic step for­ward and will apply sanc­tions to all those who are involved in killings, gross abuse and tor­ture of human rights activists, jour­nal­ists, anti cor­rup­tion whistle­blow­ers and oth­er fight­ers for democ­ra­cy and rule of law. Specif­i­cal­ly, the visa ban will affect all indi­vid­u­als in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion who are:

“respon­si­ble for extra­ju­di­cial killings, tor­ture, or oth­er gross vio­la­tions of human rights com­mit­ted against indi­vid­u­als seek­ing to expose ille­gal activ­i­ty car­ried out by offi­cials of the Gov­ern­ment of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion; or to obtain, exer­cise, defend, or pro­mote inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights and free­doms, such as the free­doms of reli­gion, expres­sion, asso­ci­a­tion, and assem­bly and the rights to a fair tri­al and demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions.”

The Mag­nit­sky Act is co-spon­sored by 15 Sen­a­tors from both parties:

The Mag­nit­sky Act was for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted to the Sen­ate by Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin, a Co-Chair­man of the US Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion and one of Sergei Magnitsky’s ear­li­est cham­pi­ons in the US Congress.

Upon sub­mit­ting the new leg­is­la­tion today, Sen­a­tor Cardin said,

“Magnitsky’s life and trag­ic death remind us all that some things are more valu­able than suc­cess, com­fort, or even life itself –truth is one of those things. May his exam­ple be a rebuke to those whose greed or cow­ardice has blind­ed them to their duties, an inspi­ra­tion to still greater integri­ty for those labor­ing qui­et­ly in the mun­dane yet nec­es­sary tasks of life, and a com­fort to those wrong­ly accused.”

In a key para­graph, the Mag­nit­sky Act states:
“Sergei Magnitsky’s expe­ri­ence, while par­tic­u­lar­ly illus­tra­tive of the neg­a­tive effects of offi­cial cor­rup­tion on the rights of an indi­vid­ual cit­i­zen, appears to be emblem­at­ic of a broad­er pat­tern of dis­re­gard for the numer­ous domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al human rights com­mit­ments of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and impuni­ty for those who vio­late basic human rights and free­doms.”

William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, said:
“We will nev­er to be able to bring Sergei back, but this bill cre­ates real con­se­quences for those who per­se­cute inno­cent vic­tims in Rus­sia. It offers some hope to those who find them­selves in Sergei’s posi­tion, both well-known as well as those suf­fer­ing in silence.”

In remarks made when sub­mit­ting the bill, Sen­a­tor Cardin fur­ther said:
“We see before us a tale of two Rus­sias, the dou­ble head­ed eagle if you will. To whom does the future of Rus­sia belong? Does it belong to the Yev­ge­nia Chiriko­vas, Alex­ey Naval­nys, Oleg Orlovs and count­less oth­er coura­geous, hard work­ing, and patri­ot­ic Rus­sians who expose cor­rup­tion and fight for human rights or those who inhab­it the shad­ows abus­ing and steal­ing from their fel­low citizens?”

The Sergei Mag­nit­sky bill will impose finan­cial sanc­tions and asset freezes against the tar­get­ed indi­vid­u­als. It calls for the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury to:

“freeze and pro­hib­it all trans­ac­tions in all prop­er­ty and inter­ests in prop­er­ty of a per­son that are in the Unit­ed States, that come with­in the Unit­ed States, or that are or come with­in the pos­ses­sion or con­trol of a Unit­ed States per­son”.

In addi­tion, the bill instructs the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury to inves­ti­gate mon­ey laun­der­ing relat­ed to the con­spir­a­cy uncov­ered and exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the theft by Russ­ian offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals of $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds and the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of com­pa­nies from the Her­mitage Fund. It requires of all US finan­cial insti­tu­tions to per­form an audit of the assets with­in their pos­ses­sion or con­trol “to deter­mine whether any of such assets are required to be frozen” and to freeze those assets.

William Brow­der said:
“We are wit­ness­ing a groundswell of sup­port for this cam­paign in Wash­ing­ton. Peo­ple are uni­ver­sal­ly moved by Sergei’s trag­ic and hero­ic sto­ry and shocked by the impuni­ty of his tor­men­tors. This dra­mat­ic step tak­en in the US Sen­ate advances the fight against Russ­ian cor­rup­tion and fur­ther defines Sergei Magnitsky’s legacy.”

The num­ber of orig­i­nal co-spon­sors of the bill has grown sev­en-fold since the last Con­gres­sion­al ses­sion. The co-spon­sors now include both the Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate Whips – Sen­a­tors Durbin and Kyl – which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve the chances that the bill is passed due to the promi­nence and senior­i­ty of these Sen­a­tors. Oth­er co-spon­sors include Sen­a­tor John McCain, Repub­li­ca­tion nom­i­nee for the US Pres­i­den­cy in 2008 who was tor­tured and spent 5 ½ years as a pris­on­er of war dur­ing the Viet­nam War, as well as Joe Lieber­man, Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for the US Vice Pres­i­den­cy in 2000. The bill’s co-spon­sors include key mem­bers of the Judi­cia­ry and For­eign Rela­tions Committees.

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