SC of Kabardino-Balkaria refused to address Constitutional Court for legality of Criminal Code amendments

The Supreme Court (SC) of Kabardino-Balkaria has refused to satisfy the advocates' petitions on sending a request to the Constitutional Court of Russia on conformity of the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP), adopted by the State Duma and stipulating exclusion of cases having anti-state character from jurisdiction of juries, to Russian Constitution. The court decided that any citizen of the country, including advocates, may send such request to the Constitutional Court by his or her own.

"As stated by advocate Psomiadi, such right was enjoyed by them, and they have sent a request via one of human rights organizations. A request of the court has no advantages over citizens' requests," runs the ruling of the court.

The petition put forward by advocate Magomed Abubakarov to exclude some of the evidences obtained through violation of the CCP from the charges against defendant Rasul Kudaev was satisfied partially. The memorandum certificate and a video record of operative conversation with Kudaev were withdrawn from the charges. The court has justified its position by the idea that only those proofs should be valid if obtained in at strict compliance with the CCP. In the opinion of the court, in case with the video record the Code was broken.

The court refused to satisfy Mr Abubakarov's petition to exclude the protocol of Kudaev's interrogation as a suspect out of the indictment. In this case the court concluded that the data in the protocol was obtained without violating the CCP, that is, there was no causal relationship between the violence applied to Kudaev and his evidences.

For the same reason the court rejected petitions of other advocates on exclusion of a number of proofs related to their clients out of their indictments.

As to defendants Zaur Sokmyshev and Rasul Khulamkhanov, the court made a decision to send them to the in-patient forensic examination and treatment at the hospital of the Russian Corrective Service (the so-called "UFSIN") for Kabardino-Balkaria.

Today, defendant Zaur Sokmyshev has stated at the trial that in the morning, prior to transport the defendants to the courtroom, UFSIN special agents used force, as he refused to go to the trial: "I was beaten, violently dragged out of the cell, my clothes were damaged."

A break was announced, during which an ambulance was called to defendant Sokmyshev. Liudmila Tsakulova, the ambulance doctor said that Sokmyshev had grazes on his body; however, she concluded that he was capable to take part in the litigation.

The court has decided to send the materials on the fact of Sokmyshev's beating to the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) for Kabardino-Balkaria with the aim of possible opening a criminal case against the agents.