Today, on 20 May 2016, lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov provided head of the Russian Federation Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for the Nizhny Novgorod region Andrey Vinogradov with a summary report on investigative departments where investigators and superiors tolerate red tape. As we have already reported, previously Mr. Vinogradov himself asked the human rights defenders to provide detailed information in order to conduct comprehensive analysis of their subordinates’ activity.
(Photo: Sergey Romanov)
In their report lawyers of the Committee for Prevention of Torture pointed out a range of serious systematic problems in the work of structural subdivisions of regional Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department.
The main problem is repeated illegal refusals of the investigators to initiate criminal proceedings. Moreover, as human rights defenders report, the situation is aggravated by the fact that the subsequent refusals often repeat word for word the previous ones and do not contain any new information or new conclusions and, in fact, is evidence of absence of the investigator’s work during the check.
The problem of passing illegal procedural rulings is closely related to the problem of inadequate procedural control by the investigative bodies’ superiors, represented by the untimely quashing of ungrounded rulings of their subordinates. Another problem which human rights defenders pointed out in their application is failure to subject the investigators to disciplinary action for violations which they commit.
Won complaints on compensation of moral damage inflicted by inefficient work of the investigation is direct consequence of the above-mentioned situation with poor quality of crime reports check, systematic passing illegal procedural rulings, and lack of adequate procedural control.
«In the course of today’s discussion in the reception room of the President of Russia in the Volga federal district Andrey Vinogradov thanked us for the provided report and assured that all the information it contains will be thoroughly examined and given a full treatment, – lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov pointed out. – We hope that this data on the problems in the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department regional units work will help its superiors to create mechanisms for their resolution».