Witch Hunt, Conflicted Judge, Rigged Court, and Other Stories

How the Judiciary in a Dictatorship Really Looks Like

Last week, a jury in New York found Trump guilty on 34 counts – and, of course, I have been closely following (and continue to follow) this process. Simultaneously, I am also following another trial – one that has just begun in another part of the world. I am the one on trial, and it is highly likely that I will be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

My case is being heard by the infamous Basmanny Court. To many foreigners, this name might not mean much, but in Russia, it is legendary. The Basmanny Court is a symbol of lawlessness, arbitrariness, and corruption. It gained notoriety 20 years ago when it tried Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then the richest man in Russia – they seized his oil company, Yukos, and sent him to prison for 10 years. Since then, the Basmanny Court has handled many other high-profile political cases. Five years ago, it tried Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia's most famous theater director, on fabricated charges of fraud. Back then, I – along with hundreds of my friends – stood outside the court and protested. If someone had told me that I would be the next defendant in the Basmanny Court, I wouldn't have been surprised. Over the past 25 years of Putin's rule, we have grown accustomed to the fact that the court has nothing to do with the law. Courts are merely tools for settling scores. This is likely the case in any dictatorship. And since many Americans now fear that dictatorship might come to the USA, I think it is worth explaining how the Russian judicial system has reached its current disgraceful state. And besides I’ll tell a story who now heads the Supreme Court of Russia (hint – it's one of Putin's former classmates).

Soviet Judge

The judicial system in Russia has probably never been fair. In the 1860s, the introduction of jury trials made it slightly more humane than before. For instance, Leo Tolstoy described it in his most famous novel about the Russian court system, "Resurrection." To Tolstoy, Russian courts were evil, yet the case of the main heroine, wrongly convicted, still ends with a pardon. In modern Russia, such a happy ending would be impossible.

Stalin's Gulag was likely one of the most inhumane systems in history. And contemporary Russian courts have no relation to the tradition of adversarial trials of the 19th century. All modern Russian judges were raised in Soviet traditions.

One such judge was Vyacheslav Lebedev, who headed the Supreme Court of Russia for the last 35 years. He died in February this year at the age of 80: his life story is very remarkable and says a lot about the rule of law in Russia.

In his youth, Lebedev worked as a locksmith at the Moscow Concrete Pipe Plant for 10 years and never dreamed of a legal career. But in the Soviet Union, there was a system of "evening departments" at universities. Workers could get a higher education by studying in the evenings. Thus, Vyacheslav Lebedev continued to work as a locksmith while earning a law degree. In 1970, he became a judge.

His superiors were pleased with him – he harshly punished dissidents and anyone the Soviet regime considered criminals. In 1985, for example, he exiled writer Felix Svetov – Svetov's only crime was his belief in God and writing about it. Lebedev convicted Svetov under the charge of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." He was soon promoted, becoming the head of the Moscow City Court in 1985, and in 1989, the head of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Russia.

After the collapse of the USSR, many former laws were revised. Judges stopped imprisoning people for any entrepreneurial activity. The criminal article "for sodomy" was also repealed. But the judges remained the same – remarkably, the new Russian authorities did not carry out any qualitative judicial reform, nor did they renew the judiciary. It seemed that the old, loyal Soviet judges, who did not even claim independence but listened to the executive power, suited them. Vyacheslav Lebedev remained the head of the Supreme Court under both Yeltsin and Putin.

Vyacheslav Lebedev

Under Putin, Russian judges, like all other elements of the state bureaucracy, became susceptible to banal corruption. A very characteristic example occurred in 2013 with Vyacheslav Lebedev – along with two other judges, he went on a safari in Ghana to hunt elephants. Officially, this trip was documented as a business trip – to exchange experience with Ghanaian lawyers and to speak at a judges' conference in a provincial town. However, during the trip, an accident occurred – according to the official version, a truck crashed into Lebedev's motorcade. Curiously, no other passengers were injured – many employees of Russian courts do not believe the official version, being convinced that Lebedev could have been attacked during the hunt.

Lebedev was brought back to Russia on a special medical flight. The Supreme Court, of course, did not admit that its chairman was hunting in Africa with taxpayers' money. There was no scandal, and the incident did not affect Lebedev's position – he retained his position for the next ten years.

Under Lebedev, the Russian judicial system reached the pinnacle of shamelessness. If you need a very brief description of how the courts in Russia are arranged, one figure is needed – the percentage of acquittals. It has always been less than 1%. In 2011, when then-President Dmitry Medvedev demanded the humanization of the judicial system, judges acquitted as many as 0.8%. But Putin does not demand this – so in recent years, the percentage of acquittals is only 0.15%.

Staring at the Desk

“Basmanny justice” is one of the most well-known terms describing the judicial system, but it is not the only one. There is also the concept of “telephone justice” – this is the primary principle by which the courts operate. The verdict is delivered not by the judge, but by the official from the presidential or regional administration who can call them and give instructions.

In 2015, Alexei Navalny was tried for the first time, and then he delivered a historic final speech. In it, he referred to Russian judges, prosecutors, and investigators as “those who stare at the desk.”

“You all constantly stare at the desk. I talk to all of you, but you keep staring at the desk, constantly, all of you. You have nothing to say. The most popular phrase – you surely know it – that is directed at me by investigators, prosecutors, civil and criminal judges, is: ‘Alexei Anatolievich, you understand everything.’

I understand everything. But I don’t understand one thing – why do you constantly stare at the desk? I have no illusions. I understand perfectly well that none of you will suddenly jump up, flip the desk, and say: ‘I’ve had enough! I’m leaving now!’

…Human consciousness compensates for the feeling of guilt. Otherwise, people would be constantly throwing themselves out like dolphins. It’s impossible to just come and constantly think about it. To come home and tell your children, or your spouse: ‘You know, today I participated in the imprisonment of someone I knew was innocent. I now suffer and will constantly suffer.’

People don’t do that, they are different. They say: ‘Well, Alexei Anatolievich, you understand everything.’

The number of people staring at the desk, who are either simply forced to do dirty deeds, or – even more often – when no one forces them to do these dirty deeds, they just stare at the desk, turn away, and try to ignore what is happening.”

Alexei Navalny in court

Navalny knew well what he was talking about. He had been tormented by various courts on fabricated charges for over ten years, and he had studied the psychology of all the people involved in the Russian judicial system. They are mostly very different from other officials in Putin’s service. Employees of Putin’s Central Bank are genuinely engaged in maintaining the Russian financial system, workers in the Ministry of Education believe they are improving schools and universities, and bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health are truly concerned about ensuring that Russians do not die from epidemics. But those who work in the judicial system know for sure that they are not upholding the law. Most of their work is fiction. They write endless piles of papers just to pretend they’re doing something lawful – but they know they are just prepending.

Most of the courts in modern Putin's Russia are bad theater. Usually, the prosecutor pretends to accuse: he reads his position from a paper quickly, quietly, and indistinctly; he doesn't care if anyone in the audience hears him. But the judge does not listen to him at all. Typically, he or she scrolls through Instagram (or another app) on her mobile phone with disinterest. No one even pretends to be interested. Everyone knows that everything is predetermined – and the court’s decision is prepared in advance – usually word-for-word identical to the indictment.

In my own trial (which is happening right now), I know how insignificant the role of the advocate is. All they can do is get the case materials and inform their client of the exact charges against them. There can be no talk of an adversarial process, as all the defender’s motions are denied. However, as the still existing honest lawyers in Russia say, it is necessary to participate even in such a trial – because after the trial, lawyers can send a complaint to the UN Human Rights Commission. Sure, this international body cannot overturn the wrongful verdicts of Russian courts. But, according to the lawyers, in the future, when the regime falls, there will be a legal opportunity to appeal and overturn all previous decisions.

Higher Court

The absolute power of Vyacheslav Lebedev, who headed the Supreme Court of Russia for 35 years, ended abruptly in February of this year. Lebedev was 80 years old and had been seriously ill for a long time – he had cancer. Despite his condition, he had no intention of resigning. Putin consistently reappointed him for new terms – his fifth term began in 2020.

When Lebedev died in office, his successor was personally chosen by Putin – she is the president's former classmate from the law faculty of Leningrad University, Irina Podnosova. While she is not a close friend of Putin, she is closely connected with other classmates of the head of state: the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and the founder of Russia's most famous law firm, EPAM, Nikolai Egorov. Moreover, Podnosova's son, Yegor, also works at EPAM. It can be said that another important clan is forming within the Russian elite – the president's classmates.

Irina Podnosova

According to sources, Podnosova may also be connected with other childhood friends of Putin – the Rotenberg brothers, Arkady and Boris, who control the Russia’s most important construction corporation. Obviously, the Rotenbergs often have to engage in legal battles with various business partners, so having their own person at the head of the Supreme Court is beneficial in such situations.

Upon taking the helm of the judicial branch, Irina Podnosova made only one important statement: she promised to move the Supreme Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Clearly, the Rotenberg brothers may soon have another fantastic business project: the construction of a new Supreme Court building in the northern capital of Russia and the taking care of judges’ houses. Since the judiciary plays no significant role in Russia and does not influence politics, Podnosova's appointment is likely just about making money for the Rotenbergs. No one pretends, no one is embarrassed, and no one even stares at the desk anymore. Everyone is simply making money.

All of this looks very pessimistic. And indeed it is – a destroyed judicial system, which is a toy in the hands of a dictator, is the most terrifying state institution; it guarantees the impossibility of positive change. Next time, however, I will try to write something much more cheerful – I will tell you about my criminal trial, which is so unbelievable that it doesn't scare but only amuses.