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English Language Page Direct and indirect denial of law enforcement agencies to provide non-judicial redress is one of the most acute problems in Russia today. The new Minister of Internal Affairs, Boris Gryzlov, appointed in March 2001, started his term by publicly denouncing the non-recording of crimes by law enforcement officials. He once again criticized the internal statistical analysis of the Ministry, which uses the percentage of solved cases as the main benchmark for evaluation. Police officers are, therefore, induced to record only those crimes that they believe to be potentially solvable. According to the Informatics for Democracy Foundation (INDEM), up to 75% of crimes reported are never registered (2). In fact, more than one third of all victims choose not to turn to the law enforcement bodies for help (3). And it is not only petty offenses that fail to get on record. An inquiry conducted by the Chief Police Directorate (GUVD) of the city of Moscow revealed two thirds of the initially out concealed crimes 471 of them qualified as grave offences. It should be noted that the inquiry had apparently revealed only a fraction of the concealed crimes. Rank and file police officers are not necessarily content with the existing procedure. According to a poll conducted by the Moscow city police officers’ trade union, 79% of police officers are not happy with the quota system in which the number of crimes to be solved and the number of administrative offences to be detected are dictated from the top. They are also not happy with the fact that the efficiency of their work is judged solely on the bases of the percentage of the crimes solved (4). In the meantime, the statements made by the new Minister of Internal Affairs do not necessarily mean that the situation will improve any time soon. Rank and file officers, who dare live up to the principles proclaimed by their Minister, often end up fighting against the rigid resistance of the system. In late November 2001, a group of police officers at the Solntsevo district police station of Moscow, citing the public statements of Boris Gryzlov, refused to be forced to work after-hours in order to fill the existing quotas. In reply, they were told that the order issued by the Moscow City Police Chief as early as 1994, which introduced specific planned quotas, has never been repealed. In other words, it still in force, and therefore, their protests are illegal (5). It would not come as a big surprise if the reform-oriented public pronouncements of the new Minister of Internal Affairs would eventually amount to just another campaign for revealing previously concealed offences. Indeed, a lot of evidence to this effect has been gathered as a result of inspections, conducted by the prosecutor’s office and other agencies. In the Voronezh region, for example, an investigation carried out by the prosecutor’s office in 2001 revealed 2 150 crimes that local police officers refused to register. During the first half of 2001, in the Kurgan region, prosecutor’s offices registered 1 100 additional crimes, which had originally been kept off the records by police (compared with the year 2000 total of only 1 142 concealed crimes). Regular inspections conducted by the prosecutor’s office of the Saratov region have revealed 1 439 previously concealed offences related to the period of 2001, as well as instances of illegal decisions to refuse to open a criminal investigation. The prevalent practice of refusing to investigate a criminal offence is corroborated not only by departmental inspections but also by specific cases cited in the reports of regional human rights organizations. The reports of regional human rights organizations also refer to those registered instances when police officers simply denied people citizens their lawful protection. Thus, according to the report on the Kirov region, members of the board of the gardening collectives, Medtechnica and Rural Construction Worker, where 50 summer cottages had been burglarized, received the following reply from the deputy head of the Vakhrushevsk police station (OVD) Pashin: “You need it, you get in the car and go find the burglars.” Officers of town district police departments (ROVD) also refuse to register people’s appeals received by phone. On January 27, 2002, for example, desk sergeant Ovchinnikov of the Leninsky district police department, refused to file a complaint of an individual against his rowdy neighbor, pleading lack of a patrol car. More often, police officers simply do not register the complainants received. Thus, a statement made by N. Milutin on November 17, 2001, at the Sovyetsky police department (ROVD) of the city of Bryansk, about a crime committed against him (an attempted car theft and robbery, causing grievous bodily harm, as well as an attempted murder) was not put on record. It was registered three days after later only because a regional legislature member, L. Komogortseva, sent a written complaint to the head of the Sovyetsky police department, Poleschenko. Nevertheless, the law enforcement officials sometimes choose to ignore even calls coming from members of representative bodies. Thus, T. Kotlyar, a member of Kaluga regional legislature and head of an Obninsk-based human rights organization, in August of 2001, forwarded to the regional prosecutor’s office a joint complaint of a resident of Polotnyany village against arbitrariness of the head of the local municipal authority (Dzerzhinky district). The latter decided to close a local medical facility and cancel a 20% allowance for local teachers’ salaries. Instead of providing a reply, prosecutor N. Privalov inquired who empowered T. Kotlyar to send a collective complaint to the prosecutor’s office. In December 2001, in the absence of any reply to the initial request, T. Kotlyar sent a second letter to the regional prosecutor’s office but so far has not received any response. In any case, most citizens end up being one on one with the local law enforcement bodies without any hope of getting due legal protection. The following are two examples from the Chuvash Republic. In September 2001, a resident of the Anatkasy village of the Marposadsky district made a statement to the local police department that he had become a victim of a theft. Initially, his statement was put on file, but it turned out later that both his statement and other materials of the police investigation were missing. It was claimed that no investigation in this case had ever been opened. L. Tikhonova, another villager from the Marposadsky district, has encountered a similar attitude from the local police force. During the summer of 2001, L. Tikhonova, who is a pensioner, had been burglarized twice. Both times police officers promised the victim that they would “look into the matter” and get in touch with her as soon as something turned up. Finally, L. Tikhonova tried to get an appointment with the head of the Marposadsky police department, E. Koshkin. On her seventh attempt (and after a personal call from the local administration head), the police chief finally received L. Tikhonova. But, according to L. Tikhonova, instead of helping her, the police officials promised that she would be “severely punished” for her exorbitant persistence. In fact, the police investigation had never been opened. Operative Nikolayev, who conducted the preliminary inquiry, concluded that the amount of damage caused by the theft was insignificant (eleven geese and a TV antenna). The antenna was valued at 60 roubles (i. å., less than one minimal wage, which means that the offence should be classified as a tort), and it was claimed that the geese were not stolen but perished from local dogs or a traffic accident. Trying to deny people the right to non-judicial redress, police officers often resort to all sorts of casuistic arguments justifying their refusal to open a criminal investigation. In 2001, the wife of Mark Greenfeld, Director of the Eurasia Foundation, in the South and Central Russia, was burglarized on the streets of Saratov. The operatives, who arrived at the scene, did not start the search for the criminals, but instead spend over an hour grilling the victim about the exact spot where the crime had been committed. Then, the police officers explained to M. Greenfeld that because the crime was committed on the border of the respective territories of responsibility of two adjacent police stations’, they were convinced that at the time of the burglary the perpetrators were physically located outside of their zone of responsibility and advised her to get the other police station to look into her case. Even false evidence is being made use of to “neutralize” some complainants. For example, the husband of a resident of the Podosinovets village, T. Mokhina, died of heavy bodily injuries in the Kirov region on June 14. The police investigator refused to open a criminal case following T. Mokhina’s application. The applicant was not notified of the decision, learning about the refusal quite by chance. Moreover, according to T. Mokhina, two testimonies were removed from the file and replaced by new ones, stating that the victim was heavily intoxicated, although no medical examination had been made after the crime. N. Gusak, resident of the city of Tuymazy (Bashkortostan Republic), has been fighting against the administration of Tuymazykhimmash joint stock company to restore his labor rights since 1996. He views his dismissal as illegal because he believes it was a retaliatory measure after he had filed a claim with the administration, refusing to work due to wages arrears. His repeated complaints to the prosecutor’s office have not yielded any result. Consequently, the claimant appealed his case to the higher level authorities and finally obtained a ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, which decided in his favor. Nevertheless, the management of Tuymazykhimmash joint stock company ignored the court’s decision. N. Gusak filed three appeals with the Prosecutor General’s Office, but all three of them were sent back to Bashkortostan, despite the fact the last two complaints appeal against the action and inaction of the republic’s prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor’s office of the city of Tuymazy. In this respect, it should be noted that Part 5, Article 10 of Federal Law “On the Prosecutor Office of the Russian Federation” specifically prohibits forwarding complaints to the body or official whose decision or action is being appealed against. Even decisions not to open criminal investigation are often taken at police stations with gross procedural violations of designated time limits. According to the report on the Astrakhan region, for example, during the period of January through April 2001, 43% of such decisions were taken at the Limansky town district police department in violation of procedural time limits. The report on the Chivash Republic characterized the activities of the local law enforcement bodies in a similar manner. Missing the deadline in responding to complaints is also an established practice in the Marii El Republic. The official reply to the letter filed by the Human Rights Center of the Marii El Republic with the Marii El Prosecutor’s Office on November 2001 was signed by the head of the legal oversight department, T. Grigoryeva and mailed out only on December 5, 2001 (while under the excising requirements a reply should be sent to the claimant within 15 days). Many regional reports bring up instances of police officers applying pressure on claimants, threatening to open a criminal investigation against them should the latter refuse to recall their statement. For example, in the city of Kursk, an adolescent S. turned to the police station ¹2 claiming that unknown persons had beaten him. The operatives, who followed him to the sceneof crime, found there another beaten minor. The boy was highly intoxicated. On bringing the two youngsters back to the station, the police officers warned S. that unless he “got lost” with his statement, they would have to charge him with beating the other youth. Prosecutor’s offices also resort to threats and pressure. For example, a juvenile correctional officer working at the Zhistrinky town district police department, Askytochkin, beat up 15-year-old Yuri Lagutin, who ended up in hospital. Yu. Lagutin appealed to the prosecutor of the town of Zhisdra, but received no reply. Later, he appealed to the prosecutor of the region, but his letter was sent back to the city prosecutor’s office. Finally, a staffer of the prosecutor officer of the town of Zhisdra called Yu. Lagutin up and told him that unless he stopped writing appeals, he would be put “behind bars.” Facts testifying to the inaction of the law enforcement bodies in response to the petitions about crimes allegedly committed by police officers deserve special attention. For example, the prosecutor office of the Vasilyeostovsky district of St. Petersburg did not take any action on the statement of B. Beketov, deputy head of the Sosnovskoye municipality, who claimed that he had been beaten by officers of the police station ¹30 (6). The prosecutor office of the Central district of St. Petersburg would not take any action for a long time following the statement by Svetlana D., who claimed that she had been beaten and raped by several officers of the police station ¹44. The delay allowed the perpetrators to remove evidence. The case of Lieutenant-Colonel Leonid Romanov from the town of Yelets (Lipetsk reion) has been widely covered by the national media in 2001. On March 28, 2001, L. Romanov’s son, Alexei, was killed in a traffic accident caused by a drunk driver, who turned out to be a police officer. Fighting for a fair investigation, L. Romanov found evidence of another twelve traffic accidents, in which the guilty party went unpunished. In nine out of the twelve cases, the guilty party was a police officer (7). The situation in the Chechen Republic is obviously an extreme example of the complete absence of non-judicial redress. As of May 2001, only one out of 302 criminal cases opened by the republic’s prosecutor office has taken to court. Out of the total number, 213 cases have been suspended because “the perpetrator was not identified.” It is noteworthy that a great number of these cases were opened following “detainment by unknown parties in camouflage uniform” with subsequent disappearance of the detainees, as well as murder, looting and theft committed again by “unidentified persons in camouflage uniform.” Out of the remaining cases, 21 cases are under investigation and 67 have been submitted to the military prosecutor office, but are not being acted upon (8). Nevertheless, in some instances, individual citizens have managed to implement their right to non-judicial redress with the help of human rights activists. On June 12, 2001, an underage youth, Ivan Sverchkov, was beaten by unidentified persons on the territory of the Khilovo health resort in the Porkhovsk district of the Pskov region. A local district operative made a report about the offence that same day. The next day, August 13, the mother of the assailed, L. Sverchkova, came to the police station in person and left a written statement. Nothing is known about subsequent actions undertaken by the police, but on October 6, the Sverckovs’ family was notified by the Porkhovsk town district police department that they had decided to not open a criminal case in accordance with Part 2 of Article 5, Article 113 and Article 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR because the identity of the perpetrators could not be established (9). The Pskov regional human rights movement “Veche” addressed the regional police department on October 22, 2001, asking it to urge the Porkhovsk town district police department to perform its official duty, as the justification of the denial to open a criminal investigation was unlawful (10). Following the second letter sent by the “Veche” organization on December 21 to the same body, the regional police department finally replied. In their answer of January 26, 2002 (by that time, six months had passed since the date of the offence), they stated that a criminal investigation into the case of inflicting bodily harm to Ivan Sverchkov (Article 115 of the RF Criminal Code) had been opened and that the relevant officers of the Porkhovsk town district police department had been disciplined for their non-action. People’s right to non-judicial redress is often neglected when they have to deal with other government agencies. The case of Asylbayev brought up in the report on the human rights situation in the Bashkortostan Republic represents a vivid example of this kind of neglect. Asylbayev appealed in writing to the administration of the city of Tuymazy and Tuymazy district on September 11, 2001. In his letter, he asked to be given access to a copy of the decision of the City Council on the tariffs for public utility services. Asylbayev received neither a reply from the City Council, nor the requested document. Initially, they did not even want to accept his letter and later refused to register it, claiming that the registration ledger was missing. We shall cite two more similar examples taken from the report on the Irkutsk region (materials were provided by the public reception office of V. Ostanin, member of the State Duma). The administration of the Irkutsk region refused for a long time to consider an appeal filed by L. Filippova, head of a gardening collective “Veteran of the Revolution,” against the unlawful distribution of land plots to unauthorized parties (individuals who are not members of the collective had received disproportionally large plots of land). To date, no reply has been received. No reply to a similar appealmade by L. Filippova to the Irkutsk region prosecutor’s office has been received either. In another case, the pension administration refused to consider a request filed by M. Dymova, now retired, who had a long working history, including in the northern areas. She asked the pension administration to provide a printout of her pension calculated by the two existing methods (based on the “old” legislation and using the individual coefficient of calculation) backed by reference to the articles of the corresponding statutes. The requested information was provided to her only after she sent a complaint to the head of the Irkutsk regional pension fund. Nevertheless, her extra World War II veteran allowance was not included into the calculation. (1) N. Khamaneva, “Citizens’ Right to Appeal.” Obschaya Gazeta (April 12, 2001, ¹15). (2) “Up to 75 % of All Crimes Committed Are Not Investigated.” nostranets (June 14, 2001). (3) L. Ivanov, “Police Caught in a Vicious Circle.” Vremya MN (June 6, 2001). (4) R. Shleynov, “What Gets in the Way of our Police’s Work?” Novaya Gazeta (October 29, 2001). (5) S. Topol, “Policemen Got Fed-Up with Sending People to Jail.” Kommersant (November 24, 2001). (6) V. Kostukovsky, “The Police Have Me…” Novye Izvestia (June 23, 2001, ¹106). (7) L. Orlova, “A Lieutenant Colonel’s Diary.” Novaya Gazeta (October 22, 2001); M. Khairulin, “Hunger-Strike as a Way to Justice.” Novy Izvestia (October 11, 2001). (8) Memorandum of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center “On the Situation with Inquiry into the Crimes Against Civilians, Committed by Federal Forces on the Territory of the Chechen Republic during the Course of the Military Campaign of 1999–2001” of May 2001 (www.memo.ru). (9) A notice issued by the Porkhosky police department in the name of L. Sverchkova bearing neither the registration number nor date. (10) Part 2, Article 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR provides for dismissing the case due to the absence of guilt, which is hardly applicable to what happened to Ivan Sverchkov. Article 113 of the Code contains provisions on opening a criminal investigation but does not give any grounds for dismissing a case. Article 195, Part 3 of the Code clarifies the procedure for halting a preliminary inquiry but does not say anything about dismissing a criminal case. Back |
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