Dovgii’s offense was the same as Vasilieva’s. On one occasion he ignored Krizsky’s demand to release a crony from prison. A few days later, the judge was savagely beaten with iron bars in the street. The police refused even to look for the attackers, although, as a rule, they investigate attacks on judges thoroughly. Dovgii was hospitalized for a long time, came out crippled, and, although now back at work, hears only divorce cases. He asks not to be given any other kind of case.
With things as they stand, professionalism is regarded as the ability not to have one’s own judgment. People who cannot dispense with Bolshevik methods are appointed in the name of the State to administer justice. They wag a finger in admonition and see nothing amiss in demanding the passing of a particular verdict. They call judges to account before the present-day equivalent of the Communist Party activists, the College of Qualifications. They see nothing wrong with condemning or pardoning in our name and by our hand….
These words were written by a promising young judge, who also asked me to forget his name, after he had been pressured by Ovcharuk and Krizsky in much the same manner as Vasilieva. He buckled under the pressure and simply walked away. He wrote these lines in a letter addressed to Krizsky, applying for retirement, adding, “I request that the matter be considered in my absence,” and left Yekaterinburg for good.
This young judge had had no intention of resigning, but one day the inevitable happened. A case involving the latest criminal machinations of some Mafia groups came his way, and Krizsky demanded that he close the case immediately. The young judge asked for time to reflect. He received threats from persons unknown, anonymous telephone calls to his home, notes left where he would find them. “Coincidentally,” he was beaten up in the entry to his house, not too severely, just as a warning, and his assailants were never tracked down.
The young judge wrote requesting permission to resign, and the Mafia case was promptly passed to another judge. On the eve of the hearing, the new judge received a telegram from the provincial court, signed by Ovcharuk himself, instructing him to stop the proceedings. The following day that case was closed.
Sergey Kazantsev, a judge of the Kirov District Court in Yekaterinburg, ruled that a certain Uporov, accused of robbery and grievous bodily harm, should be imprisoned as a danger to society until his case could be fully considered. Judge Kazantsev then moved to consider another case. He was in a conference room and writing up the verdict—a time when, under Russian law, nobody is allowed to disturb a judge. To do so virtually guarantees that the verdict will be set aside by a higher court. Nevertheless, Ovcharuk called Kazantsev to demand that he alter the restraining order and let Uporov out of prison. Kazantsev refused and was told by Ovcharuk that he would be sacked.
He was sacked.
There are any number of such episodes in Yekaterinburg. As a result, the judges who are still working there are highly manipulable, willing to rubber-stamp any judgment, just as long as they can avoid unpleasantness from their superiors. Resistance has been crushed. It is the rule of duplicity under the guise of “the dictatorship of law.”
The situation explains why, when Uralkhimmash was seized, the two sides had, in their hands, contradictory rulings on the matter. For years any sign of judicial independence was brutally suppressed, and judges were conditioned to servility. Senior judges have long experience working in the shackled Soviet courts. Where, under these circumstances, are courageous and fair judgments to come from? Anybody prepared to stand up and refuse has long since been dismissed. Those capable of saluting promptly when required to serve the cause of lawlessness are hard at work and progressing up the career ladder.
BEHIND EACH OF Fedulev’s coups stood his special intimacy with the bench of the Urals. He was friends with judges, and they were friends with him. The most frequently heard names in this connection are those of Judges Ryazantsev and Balashov. Ryazantsev is a humble judge of the Kachkanar Municipal Court, which is subordinate to Ovcharuk. Ryazantsev it was who rubber-stamped the rulings Fedulev needed in the Kachkanar OEC case, validating the deals of the rogue firm that purchased promissory notes on the cheap and cashed them at face value, thereby sealing the fate of an enterprise of international importance. The second judge, Balashov, also very humble, works in the Kirov District Court of the City of Yekaterinburg. He ruled in favor of Fedulev in respect of Uralkhimmash and at several other significant moments in Fedulev’s business career. Here is how he did it.
It was Judge Balashov who effectively fired the first shot in the Uralkhimmash affair. On Friday evening he accepted a writ in support of Fedulev’s interests at the factory, and on Monday morning, with a rapidity unheard of in the history of Russian jurisprudence, he issued the ruling Fedulev needed. Balashov managed to do this without calling any witnesses, gathering supplementary information, or making inquiries of third parties.
In fairness, it has to be said that Balashov operates within the framework of the law. He is just very good at exploiting loopholes. The fast-track procedure he resorted to is entirely legitimate. The injunction he issued “in satisfaction of the plaintiff’s demands” is appropriate in cases where the defendants have taken executive decisions and measures leading to the embezzlement of property. The primary task of such an injunction is to freeze the situation. The court is within its rights in intervening to forbid any managerial actions until the substance of the dispute is resolved.
Accordingly, Balashov’s lightning resolution on Uralkhimmash had nothing to do with resolving the ownership dispute. He was merely preventing anyone from managing the plant or making use of its assets. On the surface, all was innocence, sweetness and light. The result, however, was asphyxia.
Under Russian law, if a verdict has already been given in a dispute, it is impermissible for another court to hear the dispute again. In granting the injunction required, however, Balashov purported not to know the crucial detail that an arbitration court had already pronounced on the dispute over Uralkhimmash. He had an entirely plausible explanation for his lack of information: there was no unified communication system in the province (which was true), and people in the district courts were the last to hear about cases elsewhere.
A few hours after his injunction was issued, the ink barely dry on his signature, Fedulev descended upon Uralkhimmash with his armed brigades, waving it before him.
AN IMPORTANT DETAIL OF RUSSIAN COURT PROCEDURE
If a court shows clear bias, openly favoring one side in a dispute, it can do so precisely because the courts in Russia are supposed to be independent. All that matters is whether a judge has the support of his superiors. If the top judges who oversee the procedural actions see eye to eye with those below them, the lower court can please itself. After the ructions at Uralkhimmash, Valerii Baidukov, chairman of the Kirov District Court and Balashov’s immediate superior, called him in for an explanation. Balashov informed him that his judgment was what the provincial court had wanted; the ruling had been arranged with Ovcharuk. There were no further questions.
What about the perplexed public, however? The brazen seizure of Uralkhimmash did cause the Yekaterinburg public to ask plenty of questions.
Baidukov explained the circumstances straightforwardly. He assured the people that the courts understood that every minute counted when assets could be siphoned off to who knows where. That was why, in the interests of citizens and owners alike, a ruling had been given with such rapidity.