Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a former German minister of justice and an observer at the first trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has released a very important report on the politically motivated abuses of courts in members of the Council of Europe, which includes a section detailing violations in Russia. The report summarizes the extraordinary pressures placed on judges, the safety of defense attorneys, and two emblematic cases of legal nihilism: the Yukos trials and the HSBC/Hermitage affair. The report also contains a draft resolution and recommendations for the PACE to consider.Philip Pan from the Washington Post has a nice write up of the news:
The report acknowledged some progress, including pay raises for judges that reduce the temptation for corruption and the establishment, at least on paper, of a judges' council responsible for career and disciplinary matters.
But it said a plan to give extra credit to convicts for time spent in notoriously crowded pre-trial detention facilities has been derailed, apparently because it might have resulted in the release of the jailed former oil tycoon and Kremlin foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger cited the start of a second trial against Khodorkovsky in March -- on charges she said appeared to contradict his earlier conviction -- as one of two "emblematic cases" that cast doubt on President Dmitry Medvedev's professed commitment to fighting what he calls "legal nihilism."
The second case highlighted in the report is that of Hermitage Capital, which was once the biggest foreign investor in the Russian stock market and angered officials by waging shareholder campaigns against corruption and mismanagement in influential firms such as Gazprom, the state gas monopoly. (...)
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the government's response to her inquiries into the case "have not been satisfactory," and added, "I cannot help suspecting that this coordinated attack must have the support of senior officials."
The report argued it would be wrong to extradite suspects to Russia in such cases. Criminals might escape punishment because of Western distrust of Russian courts, she wrote, but this should be a "strong incentive" for Moscow to strengthen judicial independence and adopt other reforms.
