Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1823

March 11:

A Moscow court again postponed initial hearings in the posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky. The Guardian reports the court granted the delay after the two court-appointed attorneys representing Magnitsky claimed to have only read five of the sixty volumes of text that make up the state’s case against the deceased whistleblower. The two men were assigned the case after Magnitsky’s family members and their lawyers refused to take part in the country’s first posthumous trial, calling it a “mockery of justice.”

March 12:

The number of Russian cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights is down from 40,000 to 28,600 cases, a drop of nearly a third from last year’s totals. The Kremlin credits the drop to “improved court practices” in Russia, while rights activists note that the drop coincided with the dispatch of a team of Russian lawyers to the Court to help vet cases. “It is no coincidence that this sharp decrease took place when a group of Russian lawyers started working there,” insisted rights activist Lev Ponomaryov. “Many top Russian officials have said that there are too many complaints, that they need to be stemmed.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that since Russia joined the Council of Europe, which oversees the court, in 1996, Russians have turned “en masse” to the European Court of Human Rights, and as a result, over twenty percent of the 128,000 applications currently pending before the court came from Russia. Court officials maintain that the Russian lawyers are closely monitored.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is in talks to loan $23 billion in bailout money to Cyprus, in exchange for the names of Russians holding bank accounts in the country, which is widely regarded as a European tax haven. Experts estimate that as much as 3.5 percent of Russia’s total GDP is lost annually to money laundering ($19.5 billion), reports RIA Novosti, and Russian officials believe that a substantial amount of those funds currently reside in Cypriot banks. Estimates range from 8 billion to as much as 35 billion euros. A similar agreement was once made between the United States and Switzerland, also a notorious tax haven, in which Swiss bank UBS agreed to assist US authorities investigating tax evasion.

March 13:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned against the United Kingdom arming Syrian rebels, insisting it would be a breach of international law. The statement came after British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested the UK would consider vetoing an extension of the EU’s arms embargo on Syria. The BBC reports that talks between the two officials failed to produce an agreement on “specific” plans for the UN Security Council, but UK Foreign Secretary William Hague stated that “we found enough common ground on our concerns and our objectives to certainly continue our efforts to full agreement on these matters.”

March 15:

In a surprising alliance, Russia joined Iran, Egypt, and the Vatican in siding against a U.N declaration put forward by the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women that urges an end to violence against women and girls. Unsurprisingly, officials from Iran and Egypt objected to the declaration on the grounds that the language clashes with “national laws, religions and cultural values.” The International Business Times reports that Russian officials introduced an amendment saying that “unilateral sanctions promote violence against women,” which one U.N. diplomat claimed was “a bit of a stretch, and slightly out of place.”

Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov was accused by his fellow deputies of supporting the United States against Russia after he gave a speech at an NGO forum in the U.S. in early March. RIA Novosti reports that the accusing deputies appealed to the ethics commission to investigate Gudkov’s conduct, which they claim included a call to the U.S. to “interfere in Russia’s internal affairs.” Dmitry Gudkov and his father Gennady Gudkov were kicked out of the A Just Russia party this week for refusing to quit the opposition movement’s Coordination Council. Gennady Gudkov was already stripped of his Duma seat last year on corruption claims, although no formal charges have been brought against him. While Gudkov Jr. maintains that the claims are baseless, deputies from the dominant United Russia party maintain that Gudkov’s ties to the United States “could lead to damage to the national security interests of the Russian Federation.”