Press Release
Hermitage Capital
22 March 2013 – Ahead of another hearing in the trial of late Sergei Magnitsky in Moscow scheduled for today, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has called on Russia to cease the unprecedented posthumous trial of the whistle-blowing lawyer killed in Russian police custody more than three years ago (http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=7aeb5b74-e3a7-4164-b959-cdd0b648854a).
“The IBAHRI urges the Russian authorities to cease the posthumous criminal proceedings against Mr Magnitsky and to initiate a full and independent review of his treatment and death in prison,” said the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
The IBAHRI has challenged the posthumous trial as unlawful and breaching both domestic and international covenants. The organization said that the way the Russian authorities have opened the case against Mr Magnitsky posthumously is not consistent with the Russian Constitutional Court ruling, which did not give law enforcement agencies powers to prosecute people after their death.
“The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation decision of 14 July 2011 (http://www.ksrf.ru/en/Decision/Judgments/Documents/2011%20July%2014%2016-P.pdf) does not give law enforcement agencies a basis to pursue or revive charges against a deceased person,” said IBAHRI in their statement.
The posthumous trial also breaches fundamental principles of law and human rights, said IBAHRI referring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“The rights to choose counsel, prepare a defence case, and be present at one’s trial are enshrined in Article 14(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The rights to defence and to a fair trial cannot be exercised by a deceased accused person,” said IBA’s Human Rights Institute.
“The IBA’s Human Rights Institute, along with other human rights organizations, come to the same conclusion that it can’t be right and there is no lawful basis to put a dead man on trial. The posthumous proceedings is the new definition of Russia’s “legal nihilism,” said a Hermitage Capital spokesperson.
One of the leading international organizations promoting human rights and rule of law, IBAHRI has also called for a full review of Mr Magnitsky’s treatment and death in prison noting that his own appeals to justice while he was alive had “no apparent effect.”
“Russian courts were made aware of the manner in which Magnitsky was investigated, and the conditions of his detention, in great detail by Magnitsky himself while he was still alive, with no apparent effect,” said IBAHRI.
The IBAHRI statement was released just a day before the Russian Investigative Committee announced this week that it had closed the three-year long investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky due to “no event of crime” (http://www.sledcom.ru/actual/287357/).
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