US Senate Passes Global Magnitsky Human Rights Bill, Makes Corruption Sanctionable Offence

December 8, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

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US Sen­ate Pass­es Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Bill, Makes Cor­rup­tion Sanc­tion­able Offence

 

8 Decem­ber 2016 – Today the US Sen­ate passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act, expand­ing the Rus­sia-spe­cif­ic Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2012 worldwide.

 

William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice cam­paign, said: “The adop­tion of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act is a rev­o­lu­tion in the fight against cor­rup­tion and impuni­ty. This leg­is­la­tion will scare human rights abusers and klep­to­crats around the world. It is also the bea­con of hope for numer­ous vic­tims of injus­tice and brazen cor­rup­tion around the world. Final­ly, it is a recog­ni­tion of the pow­er of the sac­ri­fice of one man who stood against the entire evil state machine.”

 

The Sen­ate vote on Glob­al Mag­nit­sky comes after the pas­sage of the bill in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week. It now goes to the Pres­i­dent for his signature.

 

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act was spon­sored in the Sen­ate by Ben Cardin (D‑Md.), Rank­ing Mem­ber of the For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, and John McCain (R‑Ariz.), Chair­man of the Armed Ser­vices Committee.

 

It was spon­sored in the U.S. House by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Smith, Co-chair­man of the US Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee (R‑New Jer­sey), and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim McGov­ern, The Co-Chair­man of the Lan­tos Human Rights Com­mit­tee (D‑Massachusetts).

 

The bi-par­ti­san leg­is­la­tion is named after a Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who tes­ti­fied against cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the US$230 mil­lion theft, and was arrest­ed by some of the impli­cat­ed offi­cials, tor­tured and killed in police cus­tody at the age of 37.

 

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act widens sanc­tion­able offences to include sig­nif­i­cant acts of corruption.

 

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act cre­ates con­se­quences for cor­rupt offi­cials and human rights abusers in any coun­try around the world by deny­ing them entry into the Unit­ed States and access to US finan­cial institutions.

 

Sen­a­tor McCain said: “Last month marked the sev­enth anniver­sary of the mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s Rus­sia. Sergei’s tor­ture and mur­der is an exam­ple of a prob­lem that is unfor­tu­nate­ly all too com­mon and wide­spread in Rus­sia and many parts of the world today: the fla­grant vio­la­tions of the rule of law and basic human rights.”

 

“The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights and Account­abil­i­ty Act, which is on its way to becom­ing law, will … send a clear mes­sage that if you vio­late the human rights and civ­il lib­er­ties of oth­ers, the Unit­ed States will hold you account­able. In pass­ing this leg­is­la­tion, we hon­or the life and mem­o­ry of Sergei and affirm our com­mit­ment to all those fight­ing for free­dom around the world,” said Sen­a­tor McCain.

 

Sen­a­tor Cardin said: “With today’s pas­sage of the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act, the Unit­ed States has added a crit­i­cal tool to our diplo­mat­ic tool­box, mak­ing clear that gross vio­la­tors of human rights and those who engage in seri­ous acts of cor­rup­tion can­not escape the con­se­quences of their actions even when their home coun­try fails to act…. Per­haps most impor­tant­ly, pas­sage of this leg­is­la­tion is a reminder to all those around the world who have the courage to stand up against cor­rup­tion and human rights abus­es, that the Unit­ed States stands with them in solidarity.”

 

Con­gres­sion­al pas­sage of Glob­al Mag­nit­sky has been part of the Senate’s vote on the Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act for 2017 fis­cal year.

 

It comes on the eve of two relat­ed days: Decem­ber 9^th is Inter­na­tion­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Day and Decem­ber 10^th is Human Rights Day.

 

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act autho­rizes the Pres­i­dent to impose sanc­tions on any for­eign indi­vid­ual the Pres­i­dent deter­mines is respon­si­ble for sig­nif­i­cant acts of cor­rup­tion, extra­ju­di­cial killings, tor­ture, or oth­er gross vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights com­mit­ted against indi­vid­u­als seek­ing to pro­mote human rights or to expose ille­gal activ­i­ty car­ried out by gov­ern­ment officials.

 

Glob­al Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions on these indi­vid­u­als include (a) pro­hibit­ing or revok­ing U.S. entry visas or oth­er entry doc­u­men­ta­tion; (b) freez­ing and pro­hibit­ing U.S. prop­er­ty trans­ac­tions of an indi­vid­ual if such prop­er­ty and prop­er­ty inter­ests are in the Unit­ed States, come with­in the Unit­ed States, or are in or come with­in the con­trol of a U.S. per­son or entity.

 

In deter­min­ing whether cred­i­ble evi­dence exists to apply sanc­tions, the Pres­i­dent must con­sid­er requests made joint­ly by the Chair­per­son and Rank­ing Mem­ber of cer­tain Con­gres­sion­al committees.

 

Glob­al Mag­nit­sky also requires the Pres­i­dent to report annu­al­ly to Con­gress regard­ing actions tak­en pur­suant to the bill.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Bill­brow­der

 

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