The Federal Chamber of Lawyers (FPA) called on lawyers not to participate in strikes and political actions after the arrests of Alexei Navalny’s defenders (included by Rosfinmonitoring in the register of extremists and terrorists).
“The Bar is a professional, not a political association. One of the main tasks of the Federal and Regional Chambers of Lawyers is to protect lawyers from unjustified persecution and abuse. And numerous examples of such activities are widely known throughout the country,” the statement says. statement President of the Chamber Svetlana Volodina and Chairman of the FPA Council Commission for the Protection of Lawyers’ Rights Henry Reznik.
According to lawyers, the success of such a defense “is ensured by professionalism and responsibility, and not by demagogic noise.” The FPA clarified that the chamber lacks reliable information about the substance of the charges brought and their validity, which is why they are “deprived of the opportunity to form a professional judgment on the case.”
“And even more so, they should not succumb to calls to participate in strikes or other actions of a political nature. There are other legal forms of expressing civic position that do not affect the rights of our clients and the ethical rules of the profession,” concluded Volodina and Reznik.
On October 13, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow sent Navalny’s lawyers to pre-trial detention. Alexei Liptser, Vadim Kobzev and Igor Sergunin were placed under arrest for two months. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case two days before the arrest – on October 11.
According to the investigation, the lawyers used “their status in providing legal assistance to gain access to the correctional facility, ensured the regular transfer of information between leaders, participants of the extremist community and A.A. Navalny, who thereby continued to carry out the functions of the leader and director of the extremist community in planning, preparation, creation of conditions and commission of extremist crimes.”
Before the arrest, searches were carried out at the lawyers’ offices, and investigative actions were also carried out in the office of the Dalet Bar Association, where Liptser, Sergunin and another Navalny lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, work, who was not in Russia. If the guilt of the arrested lawyers is proven in court on the merits, they face up to six years in prison.
