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As we see, the institutions, which are actually supposed to protect our citizens, enjoy the lowest levels of trust. No wonder. According to the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 49 percent of Ukrainians feel a deficit of legal assistance in protecting their rights and interests.
Against the background of this situation in the legal sphere, recently in Kyiv a “creative” soiree of one of the most authoritative and famous lawyers of the Commonwealth of Independent States Genrikh Padva was held.
The meeting with the advocate gathered lawyers not only from Kyiv but also from other cities of Ukraine, notably Kharkiv and Odesa. For many of them, and this was repeatedly stressed during the meeting, Padva is not simply a famous lawyer, but also a teacher, whose example was followed by many generations. Padva himself (he will be eighty soon) makes an impression of a revolutionary person, regardless of what revolution one is talking about. The real Russian intellectual must have an ability to protect the weak, which Padva amply demonstrates.
Legal practice (cases of Padva known not only to specialists but also to the wider audience) and everything connected with it was the main topic of the evening.
According to Padva, today there is no single legal practice in Russia: “For many historical reasons, the sphere of qualified legal assistance split into two parts: traditional and consulting. The traditional legal practice is in many ways not in demand, though it outdoes the consulting part in the number of cases. In its turn, the latter has a number of serious problems, since this kind of service is beyond the effect of the law on legal practice. One of them lies in the fact that the status of legal practice is vague. In our country there are many people who provide legal services without being subjected to any rules. Anyone can carry out consultations. Another problem lies in the market providing legal services without any quality standards and organizational structures. The third problem is that our market suffers from horrible corruption, when many lawyers become merely mediators. Judges, prosecutors, investigators expect only one thing from lawyers — money. Thus, a unique market has formed in Russia.”
Padva singled out the share of foreign companies in a separate question: “The lawyers’ community is not interested in free competition with foreign companies. This is not surprising, because foreign legal practice occupied an enormous share of our market. Moreover, they pay taxes in their home country. In spite of this, the Ministry of Justice supports the presence of foreign companies on the Russian market, in order to bring their experience to us, but working according to our, not their, legislation. How quickly the reform is carried out is difficult to say. The main thing is that the government is ready to initiate changes to solve some issues.”
Carrying out the legislative reform in Ukraine is certainly a good thing, but the problem in both Ukraine and Russia lies in abiding by the written laws. “The problem is not that we lack good and correct laws, but that practice doesn’t change. In fact, the judicial session of the constitutional board, where issues are solved, is all fiction. The issue is solved not in the sitting of the court, but before that, in a room. We even did a special study showing that 95 percent of all cases are solved before being considered in court.”
Currently in Ukraine a new Criminal Code has been created. In Russia this code exists for eight years already. What would you recommend to take into account by its Ukrainian creators, since it is very difficult to amend such a code afterwards?
“I can tell you that we constantly amend the Criminal Code. Most of the amendments, in my opinion, are progressive. But sometimes simply horrible amendments are introduced. For example, we thought things could not get any worse. And suddenly law enforcement agencies pushed for, in the Constitutional Court, a norm that violates the rights of victims. As a result, amendments were introduced that in a number of cases allowed going back to an issue and increasing the punishment. Currently the issue of the necessity to introduce appeals is also discussed. The legal community waited for this amendment for a long time. It is important not to make a procedure like our former cassation out of it. Therefore, in general, I can say that one should go beyond simply creating a given law, but also consider the terms of implementing it, and the penalties for not doing so.”
While examining the verdict in the case of Khodorkovsky, we had many questions regarding the resolution. Please tell us at length about your participation in this case and its peculiarities.
“When I was confronted with Khodorkovsky’s case, I totally refused it, since I knew it was a committed, orchestrated, and political case. I didn’t want to participate in such performances. But everyone insisted — relatives and lawyers who already accepted the case. Then I personally met Khodorkovsky and told him: ‘Mikhail, do you understand that neither I nor all the best lawyers of the country will be able to really help you?’ By the way, Khodorkovsky is a very smart man. He replied: ‘Yes, I understand it very well.’ ‘Then why do you need me?’ I asked him. And he told me a quite strange thing: ‘I want words of truth to be heard during the trial anyway, and I want someone famous and respectful to say those words. And then, later, this can have a practical use, because we don’t know what will be in a year, two or five.’ I answered: ‘Then I am ready to take this case.’
“I tackled this case without any particular hope that something would come of it. The first judicial sessions were horrible. You even can’t imagine how much nerves and health one had to waste to participate in what was going on. For example, we invite the best specialist, with all the credentials to the case, an elderly respected man who makes a conclusion on one rather serious set of economic problems. And the court starts taunting him. All this lasted for the whole day. He was driven to hysterics. As a result he left and said he would never come there again. We could not oppose much to it. There was a strong, imposing chair — she pretended everything was fine, and then the court humiliated the witnesses, the defense and defendants.
“Just imagine. There was a document: a printed sheet of paper with a text, not signed. From its content it was difficult to realize exactly from whom it was. The prosecution stated that this document had been signed by Lebedev. During the judicial session we asked to make this document public and attest that there was no signature and the name of Lebedev was not mentioned anywhere. The court attested it, we verified it in the protocol — it was there. We put down our suggestions, where, in particular, we mentioned that this was not a document, but simply a sheet of paper, and no Lebedev’s signature was there. And what do you think was in the verdict? It stated: ‘This circumstance is proved by such and such letter signed by Lebedev.’ One felt like choking to death, honestly! Of course, we appealed against it.
“As a result, I found myself in hospital. The case was postponed for some time, and then they started to drag me out of hospital. They wanted it to be not later than some date. Why? Because that day the period of limitation on one of the most serious accusations was expiring. Otherwise that case was to be cancelled and discontinued — due to the end of the period of limitation. Finally, I left the hospital the same day when the period was expiring. I went to my defendant. Again, they deny an appointment. Finally, the court heard the case. And I should say — many people hush it up — it broke the case in many aspects. For example, it cancelled a verdict on one of the episodes, connected with Gusinsky, by the way. Some episodes were re-qualified, the sum for which they were convicted was decreased six-fold. But, unfortunately, it decreased their term by one year only.
“It seemed to us that we would manage to do something later, but then the following thing happened. As you see, I am not a young man, and the defendant was sent so far that it took four hours by plane and 15 hours by train or car, I don’t remember, to get there, there was no other connection with him. I couldn’t visit him. My blood pressure jumped again. I was deprived of contact, but I continued working with English lawyers regarding the complaints procedure to Strasbourg. The claim was accepted but, unfortunately, has yet to be considered.
“Now the case moved in another direction, which gives at least some hope. Before we were denied the right to interrogate any witnesses, and now they interrogated many people of high standing.”
Do you undertake free cases?
“In the whole world it is an honor to defend people free of charge, are we worse than others? A lawyer is obliged to do it, this is his moral duty. I had many free cases, but I will tell about one of them, when I even had to pay myself. So, my apartment was robbed by thieves. A few days later I was told that the criminal had been found. Allegedly, it was a 15-year old boy. I hired a lawyer and asked him to defend this guy. The lawyer tells me: ‘Genrikh, I feel uncomfortable, he robbed you and I should defend him.’ I tell him: ‘Sasha (that’s the name of the lawyer), I ask you, don’t worry, do your job!’ I did this because I did not believe the guy was guilty. In a few days Sasha comes to me and says: ‘Genrikh, this is definitely not him, the boy confessed himself — he was forced to take the blame. He was in another city all that time.’ On The Day of the burglary the boy was in his school, I already don’t remember now, somewhere behind the Urals. As a result, we proved that this boy came to Moscow a day or two after the burglary. We even found the ticket he came to the capital with, at first he simply walked there, roamed about different places. And they got him. Of course, I had to pay for the defense of this boy. And the burglar was never found.
“I also took a very important case regarding the heritage of Boris Pasternak — the case of Olga Ivinska. She was his muse and lover during the last fourteen years of his life. She was arrested after Pasternak’s death because she was sending his works abroad. She did not have a penny. I protected her free of charge.”
This summer on one of the Russian shows you said: “Generally, I should say that the president impresses me. One should bow low to the president for what he is doing now, one should erect a monument to him.” Were your words provoked by any specific actions of the president? What were they?
“I was talking about the president’s words about how one can’t keep so many people in custody during investigations, in particular, on economic crimes. His initiatives were included in the legislation; therefore today there is a strong resistance. But this is not all. Later he introduced this proposal and it was approved, while another term of keeping Khodorkovsky in custody was expiring. The prosecution demanded to extend the term, but Khodorkovsky said it was a sabotage of what the president had said. He even requested that the president was told he knew what was happening. In response, Medvedev’s press secretary Timakova said the president knew about it. Then Khodorkovsky went on a hunger strike. After this we were sure the city court would cancel the decision on extending the term, but the city court didn’t. Therefore I said: we thank the president for the declaration, but if all this work translates into actions, then one can erect a monument to him.”
The Day: Mr. Padva, you are a person with a huge legal and life experience. You lived in the USSR, about which you have just said: “You even can’t imagine how difficult it was at that time.” Today you live in another country, Russia, the essence of which is shown in the Khodorkovsky case. At the beginning of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, you probably had some hopes regarding the future of Russia. Can you tell us today, did your hopes come true? Does today’s Russia correspond to your hopes?
“As a rule, hopes do not come true. Unfortunately, we had much more expectations than achievements. On the other hand, I will sin against the truth if I say nothing has happened. There have been changes. Speaking about the course, it is in the right direction. Someone asks me when it was more difficult to work — before or now. In the past there were difficulties of that time, now we have difficulties of this time. In the past, in any case, there was not such corruption as we have now. But I can definitely say, as a person who experienced all this, today there is no longer the fear to work we had to overcome every day. Yes, the corruption scares me; so does the use of administrative resources; the conviction of the innocent; that judges often think not about justice but that someone will threaten them or bring a bribe. We have all this today, but we continue working, and I do not fear that tomorrow there will be a call and people in plain clothes will take me away as it was in the time of my youth. At that time bunches of people were taken away. And when I started working, it partly continued. Today we don’t have it. Therefore I can clearly say that if before I couldn’t imagine, I’m sorry, that I, as a lawyer, can go drink vodka with the prosecutor, now it is possible. Today during The Day I can have a mortal combat with the prosecutor without any bribes, and in the evening I can have a friendly meeting with him, have a drink and continue arguing. In my opinion, this is a big achievement, important for a person’s sense of his or her profession.”
