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Good afternoon! The program " Territory of publicity " is on air.
Today we welcome in this territory journalist Grigory Pasko
and Leonid Nikitinsky,
the Foreman of the Guild of court reporters.
Hello.
Speaking about a judicial-legal sphere
here in our country,
what kind of events do you think has become
maybe the key ones in this almost ended year?
The question is unexpected enough.
I do not see anything in…
in judicial sphere in this year
that has drastically changed the process
of the judicial system gradual degradation.
Certainly there is a key event
in judicial-legal sphere, in this (2009 -ed.) year
it has happens recently -
the scandal in the Constitutional court,
Yaroslavtsev's expulsion
from the Council of judges
and Kononov's resignation,
both ostensibly have allowed themselves
to express their opinion about a dependence of judges.
Actually nothing occurred
including march of events in Khodorkovsky's trial
this present course of events is routine
and predictable as well as unfortunately
is the trial's final result too.
Do you think Medvedev is more predictable?
Well, I think he is predictable
if we are talking about predictability of his speeches.
Instead of establishing electivity of chairman
in all courts including Supreme Court,
or the regional ones
as it was suggested,
he has abolished the last element of democracy
in judicial community.
Was it he himself who has done it or not - I do not know but, well…
The reduction of jurymen jurisdiction
is certainly such a sordid aim absolutely non-discussable
discussable in any community …
But Medvedev speaks about modernization
of judicial system,
doesn't he?
In fact "modernization" is now such a fashionable word,
everybody is discussing and discussing it continuously…
Will anything come of it?
Conservative modernization. …
What news!
irst of all, there is no more "telephone law"
for a long time now.
But he says it is necessary to fight it down.
Actually it has put on a strange air.
This theme is profound…
Judges simply understand everything
yes, nobody calls them
but anyhow they know what should be done.
The situation is the same with journalists unfortunately.
Yes, it is the same with journalists,
he ones who understand everything and so no lists are necessary.
Morshchakova (Tamara Georgievna Morshchakova - jurist, professor, judge of the Constitutional court of the Russian Federation (1991-2002) - ed.)
has raised a very important point in her report.
The point is that the judges are driven to the position, well
as though they being already the students
in university have been put back in high school's 7th year
It means there is no more scope for initiative,
for being smart for them.
Any judgment pronounced by any judge
showing some initiative and reasonableness
is simply cancelled.
The cancellation is always a bad thing;
and as a result such judges receive "black mark"
and find themselves under the threat of dismissal.
They became unreliable, didn't they?
Yes, therefore the system was built in something …
Actually, they judge not monkeys,
and being human beings
in general they understand everything perfectly well.
But they are within such frameworks
in which they are not free to make extra step
to the left or to the right.
The system works as it works,
and there is no anything remarkable in it.
I've attended Khodorkovsky's trial with interest,
mostly because of Lebedev.
He was tearing the first witness
I don't remember his name -
to pieces like a cat tears a canary.
O, it was corrida, one gate bullfight…
What a wonderful shows it was…
the show without the audience.
If it was happening in front of jury,
there would be obviously a point doing so.
This judge, Danilkin…
They say he is quite a nice person;
and he appears to be one.
I heard about it too.
Yes. Anyhow the problem
is that the judgment he pronounces least of all
depends on judge's thoughts and his personality.
Grigory, my next question I'll address to you.
I know you were studying comparatively the detention in Russian prisons
and in prisons abroad…
In fact I researched into espionage affairs.
But, visiting America and different European countries
and being in Russian prisons
as a prisoner in some of them
and as a journalist in the others
I can tell you the difference.
In the Russian Federation it is awful.
It is simply terrible,
because the prisoner in the detention centre
or in the pre-trial prison l
lives with one idea in his mind
- come to be in a prison camp.
Because in prison camp one
can elementary move around,
walk;
even food and,
by the way, health services are different there.
Mind you that the person in pre-trial prison
is still innocent,
he is not a convicted criminal by court
but he is already in conditions
actually equal to incarceration.
Here's your pre-trial prison.
Plus there is always an investigator
one more barbaric thing nobody can cancel
it is written down in pre-trial prison regulations.
An investigator
he is a dictator, he is behind everything.
He takes complete control of any parcels:
medicines, mail, books, food…
The visits of prisoner's wife and relatives,
ven an appointment with a lawyer -
all these is under the investigator's control as well.
A pre-trial prison administration hangs
on every word of investigator
and will do everything he tells them to do.
As a result we are facing Magnitsky's death.
If there were instructions from outside
to humiliate and to abase Lebedev
and Khodorkovsky any possible way
the same thing would happen to them.
Can you tell us about the conditions of their detention?
You keep your eye on them, don't you?
How do they feel themselves?
The conditions in Moscow pre-trial prison
have become better when the foreign observers
have been allowed
and even promised 4 sq m per person in custody.
This standard is more or less kept.
But we need something to compare that to, don't we?
If we compare Moscow pre-trial prison
to the Vladivostok's one or to the Krasnoyarsk prisons
we'll find out that in Moscow food
is better as well as bed sheets.
Anyhow we shall admit all this
is too far from standards in Europe
Russia strives for persistently!
By the way, due to this reform
a huge money supply has been allocated
to the GUIN staff for studying that foreign experience.
Grisha has forgotten to tell us
bout such an attraction as delivery the prisoners to the court.
Delivery to the court from the pre-trial prison,
as a lot of prisoners describe it,
means waking up at five - half past five in the morning,
long waiting in special room called "sediment chamber"…
A long drive through working-hours traffic jam
is followed by a few hours of the same traffic jam
on the way back to prison at night.
I was deeply surprised to see Lebedev looking so full of energy.
I have no idea what helps him to hold himself …
He is very vigorous.
And, which is even more important, he is so businesslike,
nothing escapes his attention
Yes, he … He simply has a presence of mind,
a presence of mind, yes, yes, yes.
They both hold themselves.
Returning to this reform, to its concept
we have to admit there is nothing
in it to withstand the investigator diktat.
Also there is nothing to help ones
to pull the doctors, all and every doctors
from their submission to the FSIN system
and re-subordinate them to the Ministry of Health.
Yes, they must perform Hippocratic Oath,
not the pre-trial prison instructions
and regulations inherited from the GULAG's times.
I mean all that restrictions
and repressions for prisoners:
well, two visits in a year, there, two telephone calls
each only 10 minutes long …
Well it is nothing but delirium.
There is nothing like this in the Western prisons
for a long time already, for a long time.
If the system is aimed to the socialization
of the former convicted persons
they get away from the limitation of all these calls,
parcels, visits…
While visiting Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining
the city where, as it turned out,
I was, by the way, the only Russian
after Ilf' and Petrov - I met a warden.
I had a talk with prisoner and asked him:
well, when did your wife visit you last time?
He said: well, the hell with her!
Just a week ago she was,
but wish to come nearly every day.
She drives me crazy.
And it is possible to call every day
phone hangs on the wall,
threw a quarter and call as much as you wish.
Or go to play basketball…