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