Today, the qualifications committee of the Moscow Bar Association found that Karinna Moskalenko’s actions did not constitute a disciplinary offence. Although the final word will be given by the Bar Association’s Council, it is possible to say that the recent attempt by the Prosecutor General’s office to strip Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s defence attorney of her lawyer’s status has suffered a setback.

Speaking at today’s hearings, the prosecutor cited the European Convention on Human Rights (a source of law very rarely cited by Russian prosecutors) and stated that the prosecutor's office was concerned with providing the defendant with adequate legal help. “We find it important that Mikhail Khodorkovsky should be provided with a proper defence,” he said. However, Khodorkovsky himself in his letter to the Moscow Bar Association and the Prosecutor General’s office had written that he was satisfied with lawyer Moskalenko’s work and that “by trying to order my lawyers around, the Prosecutor General’s office doesn’t protect me, but violates my rights”.

However, the Prosecutor General’s office believes that Moskalenko is guilty of the following: she does not familiarise herself with the case file; this inaction blocks review of the case file which in its turn impedes the transfer of the case for the court’s consideration and as a result, Khodorkovsky’s right to justice is violated.

Moskalenko’s representative at the hearing, Yuri Schmidt, stated that it had happened that some lawyers had failed to appear in court and had thus disrupted the investigation or the review of the case file. Most members on the qualifications committee panel did not find the Prosecutor General’s office’s reasons very convincing. The chairperson of the Moscow Bar Association, Genry Reznik, stated that if investigators had considered Khodorkovsky’s right to defence violated, they should have provided Khodorkovsky with a court-appointed attorney or with the right to a proper defence by other available means. An investigator that does not take the necessary steps in this direction is himself violating the Penal Code of the Russian Federation.

Other representatives on the qualifications committee asked in what way Moskalenko was blocking the review of the case file, if Khodorkovsky himself was reviewing it and is assisted by his other lawyers. The representative from the Prosecutor General’s office declined to give a direct answer. In order to clarify the position of the Prosecutor General’s office the committee continued to pose questions. “If a legal team takes part in the case, must they all attend every investigation process? Who determines the provision of the defendant with a defence? Is it the investigator? Or defendant? Is refusal to take part in a certain investigation process regarded as refusal of a defence?” The representative from the Prosecutor General’s office referred to the theoretical nature of the questions and obviously did not intend to give elaborate answers.

In the end, the qualifications committee by nine votes to two ruled that Moskalenko’s actions did not constitute an abuse of her professional duties or the standards of legal ethics.

“I’m very happy that they have taken such a principled decision,” an excited Moskalenko said afterwards. “But I do not rule out the fact that there will be other attempts to initiative the procedure. I see that the Prosecutor General’s office consistently and aggressively pursues the idea of stripping me of my lawyer’s status’.

The Council of the Bar Association will take its final decision on June 21 on the basis of today’s recommendation from the qualifications committee on the motions from the Prosecutor General’s office and the Moscow department of the federal registration service.