Qualification board of judges from the Orenburg region has subjected judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Aleksey Konnov to disciplinary action based on the complaint of lawyer of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» Albina Mudarisova against a violation of judicial ethics.
On 23 March 2015 judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Aleksey Konnov examined a complaint filed by lawyer of the Committee Against Torture Albina Mudarisova in the interests of the applicant. Before the start of the court session a former Head of the First Department for Major Cases Investigation of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of RF for the Orenburg region Elena Fedorova entered the judge’s office, she was the person, the inaction of which Albina Mudarisova complained against.
For half an hour Fedorova did not leave the judge’s office, despite the fact that the court session should have already started. After a long period of waiting the Prosecutor’s Office representative went out of the reception office, in another five minutes – judge Konnov with his secretary followed, all of them went to the court room and the court session started. The only one missing was «the hero of the day» Elena Fedorova.
Lawyer of the Committee Against Torture asked to explain what Mrs Fedorova was doing for such a long time in the judge’s office and why she refused to participate in the court session? Judge Konnov answered: «Well, she refused…So what?» To additional question on where Elena Fedorova was then, the judge answered: «She is there, she remained at my office».
Considering that judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg violated a number of Code of Judicial Ethics requirements, the human rights defender applied to the Qualification judicial panel of the Orenburg region with a complaint which was satisfied and judge Aleksey Konnov was subjected to disciplinary action.
«In the process of examination of the complaint by the Qualification judicial panel, one of its members asked me why I turned to them, since judge Konnov satisfied the requirements of my complaint and declared illegal the inaction of the representative of the local Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, – comments Albina Mudarisova. – I got a little confused and answered that I complained not against the court decision but against the inappropriate behavior of the judge which does not correspond to the requirements posed to the representatives of the judicial community. I hope that this decision of the qualification judicial board will serve a good reminder to all the representatives of the judicial community that the criminal proceeding is a competitive process and the prosecution and the defense have equal rights before the court».