Суд мести

Let me explain what this means. Because it was a closed trial, the defence was not allowed to make its own record of proceedings. The secretary to the court makes the transcript of the trial, not by hand but using a court computer. The law does not require her to hand over each day's transcript or validate it with anyone. Only at the very end of the trial are these "notes", let us call them that, used by the judge to prepare the final transcript reflecting the entire proceedings. The judge has a free hand to do this: nobody may dispute what actually took place on a specific day.

Simply put, a judge can easily falsify any part of the record for the final transcript. The defence, under the same law, may only challenge the transcript and the judge is entitled to tell them "Go to hell, it's all written down correctly." In our case, Judge Olikhver learned from Kashayev (on TV!) that someone had tried to tamper with the jury and realised that this lie would be contradicted in the transcript. So after the event she simply deleted all her questions to the jury about it.

Let us dwell on this for a moment. Over several months, day after day, she asked the jury one and the same question in the presence of a large number of witnesses, and received an answer. Which she has a direct obligation to do. The trial is over, a prosecutor is brazenly lying to the public, and the judge removes from the transcript the questions that she asked that would refute the prosecutor's claims. The defence challenged this, of course. The reply from Judge Olikhver was that this was how it really was - the jury had not been asked about interference at all! Such is our law, and such are our judges.

Supposed that the judge confirmed that the prosecutor was right. Then the issue would arise of why she had not put the question to the jury, as she was legally obliged to do. And in general, what possessed Judge Olikhver to falsify the transcript and thus show her true colours? Was it loyalty to the authorities, her defining feature as a judge? In any event, the court's supervisory body made no report to the professional standards panel that is supposed to remove judges who commit such outrages.

But there were instances in which the court failed to use its magic wand on the transcript. As a result, some episodes in the investigation's treatment of witnesses and the accused are so risible that satire surely awaits.

In one exchange between the two sides, a prosecutor examined Smirnov's testimony and read extracts from it. As in, witness Smirnov said the following. But there's no trace of Smirnov saying that in the court transcript. Because he said nothing of the sort!

There can only be one reason for the prosecution reading out nonexistent testimony. It must have been written down for Smirnov, and he was to deliver it in court. But he forgot, and the prosecution failed to prompt him. The words remained only in the prosecution's notes. And here the prosecutor quoted from the testimony, not bothering to remember if he had actually heard it in court.

Начало | << | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | >>

« в начало

Создание сайта
Алгософт