Magnitsky Sanctions Law Introduced in the Canadian Parliament

May 13, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Law Intro­duced in the Cana­di­an Parliament

 

13 May 2016 — Yes­ter­day, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty of Cana­da announced the intro­duc­tion of the Jus­tice for Vic­tims of Cor­rupt For­eign Offi­cials (Sergei Mag­nit­sky Law) bill in House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate simultaneously.

 

The Mag­nit­sky bill was intro­duced by James Bezan MP, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Selkirk-Inter­lake-East­man, in the House of Com­mons, and The Hon. Raynell Andr­ey­chuk, Sen­a­tor for Saskatchewan, in the Senate.

 

“The pur­pose of the Mag­nit­sky Law is to sanc­tion those who are com­mit­ting seri­ous human rights crimes with­in their coun­tries, or the cor­rupt indi­vid­u­als who are steal­ing the assets of peo­ple,” said Mr Bezan, MP, on the bill introduction.

 

The Hon Irwin Cotler, for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter, and one of the strongest advo­cates of Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion in Cana­da, last year urged Cana­di­an law­mak­ers to adopt the law:

 

“It is time…for us to treat Russ­ian domes­tic human-rights vio­la­tions as seri­ous­ly as we do vio­la­tions of polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty… Coun­tries that val­ue human rights and the rule of law must use the mea­sures at our dis­pos­al to hold vio­la­tors to account and dis­cour­age future violations.”

 

The Cana­di­an Mag­nit­sky Law (C‑267) and (S‑226) pro­vides for visa sanc­tions and asset freezes against for­eign nation­als respon­si­ble for gross vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights.

 

Speak­ing about the effect of the Cana­di­an Mag­nit­sky Law, James Bezan, MP said:

 

“This would pro­vide the tools and mech­a­nisms to the gov­ern­ment to ensure it can put in place the prop­er sanc­tions with respect to the trav­el and eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty of those cor­rupt for­eign offi­cials with­out hav­ing to do it on a case-by-case basis.”

 

“More impor­tant­ly, it also pro­vides both the House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate for­eign affairs com­mit­tees with the abil­i­ty to look at who is on the dif­fer­ent lists for sanc­tions around the world on an annu­al basis and report that back to the House.”

 

Before last year’s elec­tion, the Lib­er­al Par­ty of Cana­da, along with oth­er polit­i­cal par­ties, promised to enact Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions if they won. In par­tic­u­lar, the Lib­er­al Par­ty said that a Lib­er­al Gov­ern­ment would intro­duce leg­is­la­tion, mod­elled on the US Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, because of the belief that, “by impos­ing sanc­tions, we can impose mean­ing­ful penal­ties on human rights vio­la­tors and deter future vio­la­tions.”

 

Yet, after com­ing to pow­er in Novem­ber 2015, Canada’s new Prime Min­is­ter 44-years old Justin Trudeau reneged on his par­ty’s elec­tion promise, sud­den­ly changed course and decid­ed to “re-engage” with Rus­sia instead.

 

“This is a betray­al by Justin Trudeau of the prin­ci­ples that Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Mag­nit­sky stood for and who gave their lives in the fight with cor­rup­tion and human rights abuse,” said William Brow­der, leader of Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice campaign.

 

In 2012, Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Boris Nemtsov trav­elled to Cana­da to call on the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and politi­cians to adopt the Mag­nit­sky Act. He was sub­se­quent­ly assas­si­nat­ed in front of the Kremlin.

 

Address­ing a Cana­di­an audi­ence in Ottawa, three years before his mur­der, Boris Nemtsov said:

 

“Mag­nit­sky was killed by pros­e­cu­tors and prison man­age­ment… Putin gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed the mur­der­ers. The idea of the [Mag­nit­sky] Act is to imple­ment sanc­tions against cor­rupt offi­cials and oth­ers who are respon­si­ble for killing Mag­nit­sky.” (See Full speech by Boris Nemtsov in Cana­da in 2012, start­ing after intro­duc­tion at 4^th min: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/03/02/when-nemtsov-came-to-ottawa/ )

 

“As a coun­try with the low lev­el of cor­rup­tion and rule of law, Cana­da has to fight against crim­i­nals and against cor­rup­tion. You are not against Rus­sia, you are against cor­rup­tion, against crim­i­nals. It will be very painful for Russ­ian cor­rupt bureau­cra­cy to get such kind of law from Cana­da. Very painful. Because cor­rupt sys­tem in Rus­sia means that they have prop­er­ty out­side of the coun­try, they relax out­side the coun­try, they send their kids to get edu­ca­tion out­side,” said Boris Nemtsov, urg­ing Cana­di­an law­mak­ers and the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment to adopt Mag­nit­sky law four years ago.

 

The US became the first coun­try to enact the Mag­nit­sky Legislation.

 

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopt­ed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act which impos­es tar­get­ed visa bans and asset freezes on per­sons involved in Sergei Mag­nit­sky mis­treat­ment, death, cov­er up and the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy he had uncovered.

 

In Jan­u­ary 2014, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing 47 states, called for the intro­duc­tion of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions by mem­ber states in case of fail­ure by Russ­ian author­i­ties to respond to the rec­om­men­da­tions of its res­o­lu­tion, “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”, to which Rus­sia has failed to com­ply since.

 

In April 2014, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed the Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Res­o­lu­tion, list­ing 32 per­sons involved in Mag­nit­sky case and urg­ing the EU Coun­cil to adopt EU-wide sanctions.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

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