Magnitsky Act Passes in the U.S. House of Representatives with Congressional Intent to Make the List Public

November 16, 2012

Today, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act (365 in favour, 43 against). 

The bill cre­ates tar­get­ed sanc­tions for the offi­cials involved in the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as well as oth­er gross human rights abuse in Russia. 

Speak­ing before the vote, U.S. Con­gress­man Jim McGov­ern, the orig­i­nal spon­sor of the bill, and Co-Chair of Tom Lan­tos Human Rights Com­mis­sion, stat­ed the under­stand­ing of “the Con­gres­sion­al intent” to make pub­lic the list of sanc­tioned indi­vid­u­als. Con­gress­man McGov­ern not­ed that the con­gres­sion­al intent is to make use of a clas­si­fied annex only in cas­es of nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­est. His under­stand­ing was shared by oth­er speak­ers on the floor.

The Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­istry promised a “tough” response, accord­ing to Russ­ian Deputy For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Ryabkov.

U.S. Con­gress­man Smith speak­ing before the vote said: “All howls from Krem­lin show we are on to some­thing here.” Con­gress­man Smith stat­ed it was impor­tant that Russ­ian offi­cials be held account­able for “the crimes against their own coun­try­men”. The bill is a clear state­ment that “mur­der­ers and tor­tur­ers are not wel­come here,” said Con­gress­man Smith on the House floor.

Russ­ian human rights activists wel­come the bill. Leader of the For Human Rights move­ment Lev Pono­maryev told Inter­fax news agency: “I am sure that the Mag­nit­sky Act is nec­es­sary.” Accord­ing to him, if the USA pass­es the law, this would encour­age the Russ­ian author­i­ties to ful­ly inves­ti­gate Mag­nit­sky’s death. 

“Soon­er or lat­er, they will have to resolve this prob­lem in Rus­sia. Whether this issue will be addressed imme­di­ate­ly after the USA pass­es the law, I do not know. Nev­er­the­less, the adop­tion of the law in the USA will be a step in the right direc­tion,” the activist said, accord­ing to Interfax.

To become a law, the bill has to be vot­ed by the Sen­ate and signed by US President.

The Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act impos­es assets freezes and visa bans on those who was respon­si­ble for the deten­tion, abuse or death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, finan­cial­ly ben­e­fit­ted from his deten­tion or abuse, con­cealed their legal lia­bil­i­ty, or was involved in the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, as well on those respon­si­ble for extra­ju­di­cial killings, tor­ture and gross vio­la­tions of human rights of whis­tle-blow­ers and activists. 

With­in 120 days of enact­ment, the Act requires the Depart­ments of State and Trea­sury to com­pile, pub­lish, and report on a list of these per­sons. List­ed per­sons would be inel­i­gi­ble for entry into the Unit­ed States, have any exist­ing visas revoked, and have their finan­cial assets frozen.

The Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act points out that no offi­cials have been brought to tri­al for Magnitsky’s “false arrest or for the crime he had uncov­ered,” notes “the impuni­ty since his death of state offi­cials he tes­ti­fied against for their involve­ment in cor­rup­tion and the car­ry­ing out of his repres­sive per­se­cu­tion,” and says:

“The sys­tem­at­ic abuse of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, includ­ing his repres­sive arrest and tor­ture in cus­tody by offi­cers of the Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion that Mr. Mag­nit­sky had impli­cat­ed in the embez­zle­ment of funds from the Russ­ian Trea­sury and the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of 3 com­pa­nies from his client, reflects how deeply the pro­tec­tion of human rights is affect­ed by corruption.”

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