Human rights activist Dmitrievskiy applies to General Prosecutor's Office against new abuses of judge

The chief editor of the "Pravo-zaschita" newspaper, sentenced for publishing the address of separatists Maskhadov and Zakaev, has filed a new petition to the RF General Prosecutor's Office with a request to bring Vitali Bondarenko, judge of the Soviet district court in Nizhni Novgorod, to criminal responsibility for hampering justice and abuse of power. This is contained in the press-release of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship handed over to the "Caucasian Knot."  On the previous day, complaints against the illegitimate actions of the judge were filed to the Judges' Qualification Panel and Sergey Kanevskiy, chair of the Nizhni Novgorod Regional Court.

The petition and the complaints of the human rights activist are against the refusal by Vitali Bondarenko to file an additional cassation complaint against his sentence. Dmitrievskiy states that "Judge Bondarenko, by illegitimately refusing to accept my additional cassation complaint, has significantly limited my right to appeal against procedural actions and decisions guaranteed by Art. 46 of RF Constitution and Art. 19 of the RF CCP."

On February 13, 2006, Dmitrievskiy filed a cassation complaint against the sentence to the Judicial Panel on Criminal Cases. In conformance with article 359 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (RF CCP), "the person who filed a complaint or a petition shall be entitled to amend them or supplement them with new arguments before the court hearing." Using this right, Dmitrievskiy filed Supplements to his cassation complaint on February 17. In the supplement Dmitrievskiy asks the Regional Court to review the additional evidence demonstrating that the sentence which is complained against was passed on the basis of a falsified minutes of the court hearing. However, on February 26, the supplements were returned to Dmitrievskiy by registered mail. The envelop contained the letter of Judge Bondarenko on a court blank form in which he, without reference to any law, states that the "Supplements" are, if effect, his comments to the court session minutes, already declined by the judge and, therefore, are subject to be returned.

It should be noted that, in conformance with the CCP, a complaint must be filed through the office of the court which passed the sentence. The court should check if the address of the court has been correctly indicated in the complaint, if the sender's address and signature are put, if there is reference to the sentence complained against, and send it to the next higher court. If the complaint lacks the said information the court should return it to the applicant and specify the time limits for rewriting it. However, the additional cassation complaint met all formal requirements. "As regards its content," states Dmitrievskiy in his petition, "the first instance court is not entitled to evaluate it. In conformance with Art. 355. part 3 of RF CCP, the Judicial Panel on Criminal Cases of the Nizhni Novgorod Regional Court is the cassation instance on my case. Neither the Soviet district court of Nizhni Novgorod nor Judge Bondarenko V. Е. of this court are vested with the right by the RF CCP to consider my cassation complaint and essential supplements (amendments) to it. The evaluation of the supplements to the cassation complaint from the point of view of their content is an exclusive competence of the Judicial Panel on Criminal Cases of the Nizhni Novgorod Regional Court. By blocking the transfer of my Supplements to the cassation complaint to the cassation instance court, and actually assuming the role of censor in dealing with my complaint against sentence he passed himself, Judge Bondarenko has clearly gone beyond his power and committed actions aimed at hindering justice."

In the Dmitrievskiy's opinion, such actions have grossly violated his right and legitimate interests, and also legitimate interests of the public and the state, and contain elements of offence under Article 286 of the RF CCP ("exceeding one's commission") and 294 of the RF CCP ("hindering administration of justice").

As was reported earlier, Dmitrievskiy had already filed to the Judicial Qualification Panel and the General Prosecutor's office complaints against the falsification by the court presided by Judge Bondarenko of the court session minutes with regard to the key part of the expert's testimony. In order to prove his case, he attached to the complaint an audio record of the expert's examination in court, made by Yuri Sidorov, his lawyer.

"Bondarenko's actions are not just arbitrariness," explains Dmitrievskiy to the SRChF, "Neither my lawyers, nor I or any of the lawyers I know have ever come across the fact that a judge refuses to file a cassation complaint. It is a violation of all basic guarantees of judicial protection. I think, it is a precedent in the national practice. The judge has effectively cancelled the Constitution and the CCP in my case. Bondarenko is obviously in horror that the fact of his falsification of the minutes may be proved in the cassation instance court and, driven by this panic, resorts to absolutely impossible violations of the law. I should like to think that the General Prosecutor's Office and the judicial community bodies will properly assess this acrobatics. On the other hand, from the point of view of applying to the European Court, nothing can be better – violation is based on lawlessness and driven by arbitrariness. However, it is the Russian Federation, rather than Bondarenko, that is going to pay for this
lawlessness in the European Court by its prestige and the taxpayers' money, yours and mine."

On February 3, 2006, on the basis of the ruling of the Soviet district court of Nizhni Novgorod, presided by judge Vitali Bondarenko, Dmitrievskiy was found guilty of committing a crime under Article 282, part 2, item "b" of the RF CCP (actions aimed at stirring hate or hostility, or at humiliation of dignity of a person or a group of persons on the basis of sex, race, nationality, attitude to religion or membership in a social group, committed using mass media by way of malversation) and imposed a punishment in the form of two years of suspended imprisonment with four years of probation. Dmitrievskiy was incriminated with publication of addresses by Ahmed Zakaev and Aslan Maskhadov to the Russian people and the European Parliament containing calls for peace, severe critics of the Russian leadership policy in the North Caucasus and personally of Vladimir Putin. Major Russian and international human rights organizations consider the accusation politically motivated and the court sentence illegal and aimed at liquidation of the guarantees for the freedom of speech in Russia.