BUSINESS AS USUAL AND A LITTLE POLITICS

Abstract

(By Anastasia Kornya. Vedomosti, Feb. 24, 2016, p. 2. Condensed text:) According to a European Court of Human Rights ruling on the KirovLes case, published on Tuesday [Feb. 23], the Russian courts arbitrarily applied the law when they found Aleksei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov guilty of acts that are indistinguishable from regular commercial activities .1 In the opinion of the ECHR, Russian courts did not provide a fair trial, thereby violating Art. 6 of the European Convention [on Human Rights]. They didn't even try to hide blatant irregularities, in particular by failing to consider the applicant's arguments about the political underpinnings of his case, which the ECHR found were at least tenable. It recalled that the investigation was opened [in 2011] after the publication of Navalny's investigation of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline project involving high-level Russian officials; then, in 2012, the KirovLes case was reopened on the direct orders of [Russian] Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrykin at the same time Navalny was investigating [Bastrykin's] business.. . . ... Officially, the ECHR did not see any political motivations behind Navalny's prosecution: The complaint regarding violations of Art. 18 of the Convention was declared inadmissible. However, a fairly clear assessment of the political underpinnings of the case was actually given in the part of the decision dealing with the violation of the right to justice, says Navalny's lawyer Olga Mikhailova. In addition, three of the seven judges (including the judge from Russia, Dmitry Dedov) issued a separate opinion in which they insist that the Navalny case is a clear attempt to silence him through criminal charges, [a claim] that has not been adequately assessed by the ECHR. ... The ECHR ruled that Russia must pay the claimants 8,000 euros in compensation for nonpecuniary damages (if the sentence is revised, they would be able to recover compensation in a Russian court), as well as 48,053 euros to Navalny and 22,893 euros to Ofitserov for costs and expenses.. . . ... Lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky says the ECHR decision is meant to prove a point, noting the nonstandard amount for legal ... 1[In July 2013, a Kirov court found Navalny guilty of embezzling funds from timber company KirovLes. He was sentenced to five years in a penal colony, but released pending appeal. Ofitserov, former director of the Vyatka Lumber Company (VLC), was found guilty of assisting Navalny and sentenced to four years; see Current Digest, Vol. 65, No. 29, pp. 5 - 9. - Trans.] ... compensation (rarely is this amount more than 850 euros) and the speed with which the ruling was rendered (30 months is a record pace for Strasbourg [i.e., the ECHR]). Such decisions - and Navalny has been awarded record compensation amounts before - gives leverage to those advocating Russia's withdrawal from the European Convention, the lawyer warns... .