For two months the Prosecutor has refused to execute the court decision that obliged him to approve the motion of the Committee against Torture lawyer and notify him of the decision taken. 

    You may remember that in January 2007 Mr. Yuriy Sidorov, lawyer of the Committee against Torture, when representing the interests of Mr.Zhigalov,  sent a petition to the Kstovo prosecutor in order to get access to the materials of the criminal case initiated because Mr. Zhigalov had been savagely beaten.   

    Earlier, Vladimir Zhigalov filed an application with the Committee against Torture stating he had been violently treated by policemen from the Kstovo city department of Internal Affairs in 2005.

    At present the Committee against Torture is conducting a public investigation of the fact of battery. The Deputy-prosecutor of Kstovo initiated a criminal case under the fact of infliction of middle-severity health-damage to Mr.Zhigalov in October 2005.   

    On 24 August 2006 the proceedings under the case were suspended because the Prosecutor’s office failed to find the perpetrator who committed the crime against Vladimir.

    Lawyer Sidorov filed a motion in the name of the Kstovo Prosecutor in order to study the materials of the case. According to the RF Criminal procedure Code, the motion is to be examined and approved right after receipt. If immediate approval of the motion is impossible it is to be examined and decided upon within three days from the moment of submission.  The Prosecutor is to issue a decision about full or partial satisfaction of the motion and the applicant is to be notified about it.

    However, the lawyer was not notified of the decision upon his motion. As a result of such disdainful attitude to Mr. Zhigalov’s rights and interests on the part of the Kstovo Prosecutor’s office, a complaint was sent to the Kstovo city court in February 2008.

    On 15 February 2008 the Kstovo court adjudicated that inaction of the Prosecutor’s office manifested in lack of approval of lawyer Sidorov’s motion was unlawful. The Court obliged the Kstovo city prosecutor to satisfy the motion and notify him of the decision.  

    The Kstovo prosecutor did not appeal against the above mentioned decision and it entered into force 10 days later.

    According to article 392 of the RF criminal procedure Code the decision that has entered into force is binding for all state authorities, bodies and officials and is subject to mandatory execution on the RF territory. Non-execution of the judgment leads to a charge under article 315 of the RF Criminal Code (non-execution of court judgment).

    However, two months passed the city prosecutor has not yet notified Mr. Yuriy Sidorov of the decision taken upon his motion, and thus, he has not executed the court ruling that is enforceable.