The Russian rule
By ROBERT AMSTERDAM
UPDATED AT 6:22 PM EDT Thursday, Apr. 15, 2004
Toronto -- Re The Sutyagin Case Doesn't Indict All Russian Justice (April 14): I was startled to read Peter Solomon's conclusion that the Igor Sutyagin case is atypical of Russian justice. As a lawyer acting on behalf of three political prisoners in Russian jails -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Aleksei Pichugen -- I beg to disagree.
I have witnessed Russian "telephone justice" first-hand, watching political instructions given via cellphones to prosecutors in front of judges. The judges' obvious bias is recognized by all counsel who practise before them.
When I identified this "Basmanny justice" (named after a particularly notorious courthouse in Russia) where the rule of law is absent, a major Moscow newspaper interviewed Russian lawyers concerning my comments. The Russian lawyers unanimously agreed and admitted they had not raised the issue because they had to practise there each day.
Mr. Solomon fails to note that a lengthy jail term in Russia is a death sentence, given the rampant HIV and tuberculosis in Russian jails.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg sits with more than 50,000 complaints concerning Russia. The sorry state of Russian justice requires countries like Canada to make the rule of law an issue, particularly as Russia attempts to join the World Trade Organization.
Mr. Sutyagin represents the rule for Russian justice -- not the exception.
