Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Evgeny Litvinov comments on the proposal of the Minister of the Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bashkortostan Roman Deyev to introduce administrative responsibility for “false accusation of police officers and other state authorities”:

“Minister of the Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bashkortostan Roman Deyev proposed yesterday to introduce administrative responsibility for “false accusation of police officers and other state authorities» – Proufu.ru portal informs.

Lately, the statesmen have some strange itch to prohibit something what it not yet clapped on, or to drastically limit any criticism.

So, possibly, the Lieutenant General decided to keep up with the modern trends and proposed some highly vague and strange initiative.

It is not clear why the procedure for bringing to responsibility for knowingly fraudulent accusation, provided by the Criminal Code of the RF, does not seem sufficient to him.

In my view, it’s not the major problem which the respectable head of the Bashkirian Ministry of the Interior should be preoccupied with.

Here are just brief results of google search for some time past about the Bashkirian police:

 – In Ufa the criminal case is initiated with regard to the rape of a 23-years old interrogating police officer. On 31 October 2018, 51-year old head of the Interior Department for the Ufimsky District, 50-years old head of the Interior Department for the Karmaskalinsky District, 34-years old head of the Department of Migration of the Department of the Interior for the Ufimsky District were apprehended on suspicion of committing this crime.

– The reason of gang rape in Ufa was deep drinking. Head of the police trade union: “Half of staff in the regions might as well be sacked”, 2 November 2018.

– There is a wave of police officers suicide in Bashkiria: another police officer committed suicide the day before. Three days after the suicide of a 33-years old interrogating officer of the police department for the Uchalinsky District, yesterday, another law-enforcement officer took his own life, 7 November 2018.

– Russian police officers beat up the investigators at the police department. In Ufa, two police officers are suspected of having beaten up two Investigative Committee officers, who arrived to the , police control room in order to check a complaint about a battery of a convict that happened there, 15 January 2019.

These are just the cases that became known to the public due to coverage in the mass media and social networks. And I’m purposely omitting the cases which the Committee Against Torture is dealing with in Bashkiria.

We may only guess what other negative things happened to the structure of the Bashkirian Ministry of the Interior for such a short time.

And what does Roman Deyev propose with regard to this? Enhance the intradepartmental monitoring? No. Be open to the society and try to sort out the problem of people’s trust in the police? Again, negative. In a highly vague form he proposes to introduce administrative responsibility for unjustified complaints against the police officers and other state officials.

In my opinion, it is driven only by desire to punish anyone who dares to voice something critical about the Ministry of the Interior representatives – bypassing the Criminal Code of Russia.
But, maybe, Lieutenant General Deyev should pay more attention to what is going on inside his department and attempt to restore order there instead of blaming the mirror which reflects his work?

Based on our practice, I can say that practically in 100% torture complaints are dismissed, with refusal to initiate criminal proceedings.

So what? Does it mean that anyone whose complaint is dismissed is nothing but a false accuser whose intention was to slander the Ministry of the Interior?

By the way, sometimes it happens so, but such cases are so few, that I’m sure they don’t require any additional sanctions in addition to those which are stipulated by the law, anyway.
 
However, in most cases it turns out that it’s not some evil-minded accuser belied the Ministry of the Interior, but rather, that the investigators checked his torture complaint negligently and issued an illegal ruling.

There are dozens of examples in our practice when justice could be restored only years later and only after repeated illegal rulings refusing to initiate criminal proceedings.

Sometimes seeking the truth requires addressing the European Court of Human Rights.

Based on Deyev’s proposal, now the person lodging a torture complaint risks to be repeatedly punished during all this long way of proving one’s right”.