Russian lawyers published a petition calling on their colleagues to carry out a “preventive action” against discrimination and pressure from the authorities.
In particular, those who signed the appeal propose to suspend participation in all legal proceedings. At the time of publication of the news, the petition was signed by more than 30 people, among them lawyers Dmitry Zakhvatov, Katerina Tertukhina, Evgeny Stupin and others.
“Today, lawyers in Russia are forced to carry out their professional activities in an atmosphere of fear for the life and health of themselves and their loved ones, fear of arbitrary imprisonment, systematic obstruction of legal practice and unpunished interference in it, in an atmosphere of violence and torture, intimidation, direct threats to freedom, health and life,” says the text of the appeal.
The authors of the petition emphasized that lawyers are often discriminated against compared to other, formally “equal” participants in the justice process. In particular, the court may ignore the lawyer's rights to rest or treatment by scheduling a hearing at an inappropriate time. Payments to those who worked as intended are often delayed.
In addition, the appeal says, representatives of the legal community are often directly prevented from working: “There are not only cases of ignoring requests, statements, petitions, complaints and violations of the professional rights of lawyers, but also cases of murder, use of violence, and uttering threats.”
The initiators of the petition note that crimes against lawyers are not properly investigated by law enforcement agencies. Moreover, often the security forces themselves initiate the persecution of defense lawyers: “Sophisticated methods of prosecuting lawyers for their professional activities on far-fetched administrative and criminal charges have become firmly established in the practice of law enforcement agencies and the courts.” In particular, mention is made of the recent arrest of the lawyers of politician Alexei Navalny — Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Liptser and Igor Sergunin.
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In addition to the call for a three-day strike, the petition contains an appeal to the authorities. The authors of the initiative demand an investigation into cases of obstruction of legal practice, an end to unfounded prosecution of colleagues, and the introduction of norms into the Criminal Code to protect lawyers from interference in their activities. The authors of the appeal also call on the regional chambers of lawyers to refrain from bringing the lawyers who took part in the action to disciplinary action.