On 18 May 2007 the Sovetsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod City considered the complaint of Mr. I.A. Kalyapin, the chairman of the NN Committee Against Torture, against the decision of refusal to open a criminal case, made on 23 March 2007 by Mr. Kozyrev, a senior investigator of the Sovetsky District Prosecutor’s Office, in respect of Mr. Kalyapin’s allegations of a crime.

    You may remember that on 9 March 2007 the NN Committee Against Torture submitted an application to the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Prosecutor’s Office requiring it to carry out an inquiry into the unlawful detention of minor Dmitry Andronov in a detention facility (SIZO), who had been released form custody earlier that day (9 March 2007) by the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court.

    The NN Committee Against Torture, which is granting legal aid to minor Dmitry Andronov who had allegedly been beaten by policemen and prosecution officials, upon the receipt of the necessary court’s decision, required the staff of the detention facility to release Mr. Andronov from custody. After they refused to execute the court’s decision, referring to the end of a working day and saying that they would release Dmitry in three days, experts of the Committee at once submitted an application of an alleged crime to the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

    The Sovetsky District Prosecutor’s Office carried out an inquiry in respect of this application and, as a result, adopted a decision of refusal to open a criminal case. Having examined the decision, experts of the NN Committee Against Torture concluded that the inquiry carried out by Mr. Kozyrev, a senior investigator of the Sovetsky District Prosecutor’s Office, was incomplete and the adopted decision was unlawful and ungrounded. In the course of the inquiry investigator Kozyrev had only questioned the staff of the detention facility and failed to interview the applicant and the victim.

    It should be mentioned that the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Prosecutor’s Office, in the person of deputy prosecutor Stravinskas, absolutely concurred with the decision of investigator Kozyrev.

    And now, on the last Friday Ms. L.P. Dorogorskaya, a judge of the Sovetsky District Court, having considered the complaint of the chairman of the NN Committee Against Torture against the above decision, acknowledged that “the inquiry in respect of Mr. I.A. Kalyapin’s application, carried out by investigator of the Sovetsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhny Novgorod City S.G. Kozyrev, was incomplete and the conclusions concerning the results of the inquiry were premature”, declared the decision in question “unlawful and ungrounded” and obliged the prosecutor of Sovetsky District to remedy the defects.

    Judicial bodies, by this decision, have once more demonstrated their high professionalism, impartialness and yearning to observe the provisions of European law. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same about prosecution officials, which every time demonstrate their ignorance of the Criminal Procedure Code and disregard of European law, which is an integral part of domestic law and consequently is to be executed, however irritating it may be, for example, for senior investigator Kozyrev.