A thief nobody stops becomes bolder. Which brings us back to Uralkhimmash. Just as Lobva was followed by Kachkanar, so Kachkanar was followed by Uralkhimmash. In September 2000, that enterprise, too, was seized by force of arms, following the same scenario. During 2001, there was a quiet stifling of the shareholders by artificially bankrupting the enterprise, again with the indulgence and connivance of the authorities. The “managed democracy” proclaimed by Putin was on the march.
Or perhaps it was just cowboy capitalism under the management of Mafia syndicates that had the law-enforcement agencies, a corrupt bureaucracy, and a tainted judiciary in their pockets.
THE URALS JUDICIARY: THE MOST CORRUPT IN THE WORLD?
Let us recall that, on the night following the seizure of Uralkhimmash, Fedulev and the supporters of the deposed director were waving a collection of mutually exclusive legal rulings at each other.
The documents were not forgeries. As soon as you start looking into the documents relating to Uralkhimmash, the Kachkanar OEC, and the Lobva factory, you see that the armed invasions were sanctioned by the courts of Sverdlovsk Province. We find certain judges on the side of one party, while other judges are on the side of the other. It is as if no laws existed, as if there were no constitution. Even as the Mafia syndicates of the Urals were slugging it out to claim their territories, a civil war was going on within the judiciary. The courts were being used, and continue to be used, as rubber stamps for decisions in favor of one party or another.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to Vyacheslav Lebedev, chairman of the Supreme Court of Russia, from I. Kadnikov, Award of Merit of the Russian Federation, former chair of the October District Court of Yekaterinburg, and V Nikitin, former chair of the Lenin District Court of Yekaterinburg:
It is Ovcharuk [Ivan Ovcharuk, chair of the Sverdlovsk Provincial Court from Soviet times until the present] who over a period of years participates directly in the formation and training of the bench in the Urals, personally chooses and controls the selection of judges for each appointment. Without his personal approval not a single candidate can be appointed to the bench, and none of us can have his appointment extended. Any judges who fail to find favor with him personally are squeezed out and persecuted. They are compelled to leave their jobs, and individuals are often selected for membership of the bench who have neither qualifications nor experience of the work but who are in some respect vulnerable and hence manipulable. At the present time a great number of highly qualified judges who have worked for many years and have immense experience, who possess such important qualities as high moral principles, independence and firmness in arriving at verdicts, incorruptibility and courage, have been forced out of judicial work. The sole reason is that if you are not corrupt, it is impossible to work normally under the direction of Ovcharuk.
What, in the opinion of Ovcharuk, are the characteristics of a good judge?
Anatoly Krizsky, until recently the chair of the Verkh-Isetsk District Court of Yekaterinburg, was not just good; he was “the best in the profession.” For many years it was Krizsky who loyally looked after the interests of Ivan Ovcharuk. What did that entail?
The Verkh-Isetsk court is the quirkiest in Yekaterinburg. Yekaterinburg prison is located on its territory, which means that, in accordance with the law, this court examines all cases relating to the shortening of sentences of inmates in the prison. Everybody in Yekaterinburg knows that the main factor influencing the early release of a prisoner is not the nature of the crime, not what the inmate actually did and hence whether or not he remains a danger to society, but—quite simply—money. A crook from a powerful crime syndicate will usually spend less time in prison than other criminals. His colleagues will simply buy him out.
For certain district courts, this situation leads to prosperity. Russia’s district courts are, in general, as poor as church mice. They are chronically short of resources, even of paper; plaintiffs have to bring their own. The judges’ salaries are barely enough to make ends meet. At the Verkh-Isetsk court, the picture is quite different, however. The building is surrounded by Jeeps, Mercedes, and Fords costing several thousand dollars. The owners who emerge from these vehicles in the mornings are modest district judges whose salaries are a few thousand rubles. One of the flashiest cars invariably belongs to Anatoly Krizsky.
Krizsky had a close relationship with Pavel Fedulev. For many years it was Krizsky who presided over cases in which Fedulev figured in one capacity or another. Krizsky never allowed these cases to get bogged down in red tape. For the cases in which Fedulev was involved, the judge would always apply the fast-track system, letting nothing hold him back: neither the need to call witnesses nor the question of whether his decisions were in accordance with the law. If Fedulev asked Krizsky to rule that certain shares belonged to him, for example, Krizsky would not bother with the necessary proof. He would simply state: “These shares belong to Fedulev.” With such rulings under his belt, Fedulev appeared at Uralkhimmash after the armed invasion.
Another curious detail is that Krizsky’s rulings-to-order were sometimes obligingly made in the comfort of the customer’s place of business. Krizsky would record his decisions on Fedulev’s writs not in the courtroom, as the law specifically requires, but in Fedulev’s office. Sometimes it was not even the judge who made the ruling but Fedulev’s lawyer, in his own handwriting, with Krizsky merely adding his signature.
When in the autumn of 1998, Fedulev began to have problems with the prosecutor general’s office over his defrauding of a Moscow company, it was Krizsky who, accompanied by Fedulev’s lawyer, flew to Moscow to see the then prosecutor general, Yury Skuratov, to argue that the criminal proceedings against Fedulev should be dropped. Skuratov, who had been on friendly terms with Krizsky since they were young, received him personally, and although no one knows how it happened, the case was closed. On his return to Yekaterinburg, Fedulev’s wife met Krizsky, She made no secret of the fact that she thanked him for his trouble, and Krizsky, in turn, made no secret of how pleased he was: a few days later he bought himself a new Ford Explorer.
To the Western reader, Krizsky’s purchase may seem like no big deal. The chairman of a North American or European court is hardly going to be a beggar, so it is not surprising if he drives an expensive car. But for the chairman of a district court in Russia to afford such a car means one of two things: either he has just come into a large (by our standards) inheritance, or he is taking bribes. There is simply no third explanation. In Russia a Ford Explorer is something only a successful businessman can afford, and under Russian law, the chairman of a court is not permitted to engage in business. A Ford Explorer costs the equivalent of a judge’s salary for twenty years.
Nor was this the end of Krizsky’s miraculous good fortune. Barely a month had passed after the appearance of the Ford Explorer when Fedulev was again in trouble with the prosecutor general’s office. The judge again flew off to talk to Skuratov, not in Moscow this time but at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where the prosecutor general was on holiday. The storm clouds hanging over Fedulev were again dispersed. Krizsky exchanged his Ford Explorer, which had already sent shock waves through Yekaterinburg society, for a Mercedes 600, the ultimate status symbol of a New Russian.
Krizsky’s birthday parties were the talk of Yekaterinburg, festivals of conspicuous consumption to rival the name-day celebrations of overstuffed prerevolutionary merchants. On those occasions the court was suspended, and, by order of the chairman, the doors were locked. Krizsky hired a restaurant in the center of town, money flew right and left, and vodka flowed in torrents. Every bureaucrat in Yekaterinburg kicked over the traces under the astonished gaze of the mostly impoverished public. What did those drinking and dancing care that a judge had no business conducting himself in such a manner, not only according to unwritten rules of common decency but according to the writ of law? The law on “the status of judges in the Russian Federation” requires that they maintain a modest demeanor outside work (and certainly during business hours). They are to avoid any personal associations that might adversely affect their reputation, and show the greatest circumspection at all times, in order to maintain the highest level of respect for the authority of the judiciary.