The judges of the Moscow City Court will for a fifth time scrutinise the legality or otherwise of conducting the investigation in Chita.  A hearing is announced.

On 7 April at 13.30 hours in Moscow City Court courtroom 422 the defence of Michael Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev will again speak of the unlawfulness, absence of a legal basis, and lack of argumentation in the ruling of Deputy Public Prosecutor V. Ya. Grin of 3 February 2007.  This ruling determined that the preliminary investigation proceedings should take place in Chita City.

Our readers will recall that a ruling of astounding legal probity regarding the issue of Chita was made by the Basmanny Court, Moscow on 20 March last year.  The deputy public prosecutor’s directive was declared unlawful and unfounded and, moreover, the Public Prosecutor’s Office was instructed to correct the violations it had committed.

On 16 April 2007, after a ruling by the appeals section of the Moscow City Court, which also found in favour of the defence of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, the decision of the Basmanny Court came into effect.  The officials affected, however, ostentatiously dragged their heels over complying with the court’s decision, while the Public Prosecutor’s Office, eager to overturn this unwelcome decision, made unprecedented efforts to have the proceedings reviewed.  On two occasions the review instances of the Moscow City Court rejected the legal arguments of the Public Prosecutor’s Office as unsubstantial, and when Judge Stepalin of the Supreme Court did nevertheless institute review proceedings, the judges of the Moscow City Court rejected the review proposal.  At this point the Public Prosecutor’s Office concentrated all its efforts on obtaining the requisite decision from the Supreme Court.

On 25 December last year, the panel of judges of criminal cases of the Supreme Court, presided over by Judge Stepalin, having considered the review proposal, delivered the Public Prosecutor’s Office from nine months of torment by quashing the inconvenient decision and the case was referred back to the Basmanny Court for further consideration.
On 30 January, Judge Mushnikova of the Basmanny Court concluded that the Deputy Public Prosecutor’s ruling did not detract from the constitutional rights of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and on that basis rejected the appeal of the defence.  This argumentation was described by Khodorkovsky’s attorney, Yury Schmidt, as “a new invention of the Basmanny Court, since this had not been mentioned even in the 25 December determination of the panel of judges of criminal cases of the Supreme Court”.

In his appeal on a point of law against Judge Mushnikova’s ruling, Platon Lebedev noted that the very fact of the repeated acceptance and consideration by the Basmanny Court of the attorneys’ appeal, which should be heard in the location of the preliminary investigation proceedings, “is an unchallengeable legal argument by Judge Mushnikova in favour of Moscow (even if she herself is unaware of the fact), and an admission that the ruling by V.Ya. Green of 3 February 2007 in favour of Chita was unlawful.

On 7 April the Moscow City Court bench, reviewing the ruling of Judge Mushnikova in the context of appeal proceedings, will once more be obliged to express its view of the ruling by Deputy Public Prosecutor Grin.  The court’s four previous decisions were in favour of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, and their attorneys.