Moscow Bar Association Rejects Order from the Russian Interior Ministry to Appoint Lawyers to the Magnitsky Family Against Their Will

January 27, 2012

The Moscow City Bar Asso­ci­a­tion has sent a let­ter to Inte­ri­or Min­istry Inves­ti­ga­tor Boris Kibis stat­ing that his order to appoint a state lawyer to rep­re­sent Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly is in breach of the Russ­ian law. The let­ter states that Russ­ian law does not allow state bod­ies to assign coun­sel after a defendant’s death.

“Arti­cle 51 of the Russ­ian Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code does not allow the state to appoint coun­sel to the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a deceased defen­dant in a crim­i­nal case,” said Ms Zhiv­ina, Chair­woman of the Moscow City Bar Asso­ci­a­tion in a let­ter sent to inves­ti­ga­tor Kibis.

Mrs Zhiv­ina also states that the inves­ti­ga­tor has over­stepped his author­i­ty by appoint­ing a par­tic­u­lar lawyer to the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly against their will.

“The lawyer E. Khokhobaya can not be appoint­ed as under Arti­cle 51 of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dur­al Code, the Moscow City Bar Asso­ci­a­tion can not be asked by inves­ti­ga­tors to assign a spe­cif­ic named lawyer.”

On Mon­day, rel­a­tives of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky wrote to Hen­ry Reznik, Pres­i­dent of the Moscow City Bar Cham­ber, ask­ing for pro­tec­tion from the Inte­ri­or Min­istry’s attempts to appoint a lawyer to the fam­i­ly against their will. 

The moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Mrs Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, said:
“I trust my lawyer Niko­lai Gorokhov and refuse to accept his replace­ment that inves­ti­ga­tors who are clear­ly biased are try­ing to impose upon me. I am ask­ing the Moscow Bar Asso­ci­a­tion to inform all lawyers about my request and not to accept the instruc­tions from the Inte­ri­or Min­istry in this case which has been reopened posthu­mous­ly against my son in vio­la­tion of the law.”

Natalia Mag­nit­skaya said that the actions of the inves­ti­ga­tors show a con­flict of inter­est because the offi­cers inves­ti­gat­ing her son are the same offi­cers who her son had exposed for steal­ing $230 mil­lion of bud­get funds from the state and the sub­se­quent cov­er up of this crime:

“The haste with which the Deputy Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor and oth­er inves­tiga­tive author­i­ties are oper­at­ing in this case and their actions in breach of the legal pro­ce­dure is a demon­stra­tion of their con­flict of inter­est and their bias towards those offi­cers who my son had impli­cat­ed in seri­ous crim­i­nal activities.” 

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