Candidates for observers surrendered – Newspaper Kommersant No. 164 (7365) of 09/07/2022

On Tuesday, September 6, the Public Chamber (OP) of the Russian Federation completed the acceptance of applications to the regional composition of public monitoring commissions (POCs) that control the observance of the rights of citizens in places of deprivation of liberty. Rotations expect commissions in 43 subjects – thus, the upcoming update will be one of the most massive in recent years. The current members of the PMC and applicants who have submitted applications for the first time fear that the new composition of the commissions will mainly include people loyal to the authorities.

By the end of August, the OP RF received more than 40 applications from those wishing to enter the PMC of Moscow (today there are 39 people). A similar situation is in St. Petersburg, Alexander Kholodov, deputy chairman of the commission of the Opinion Chamber of the Russian Federation on security and interaction with the PMC, told Kommersant. At the time of the conversation, applications were still open, and Mr. Kholodov found it difficult to name the total number of applicants. He noted that the upcoming rotation is one of the largest in recent years and should take place in 43 regions: “Until September 26, lawyers, our commission and the council of the chamber will have to form new compositions of the PMC. We are ready to increase the composition of commissions in the regions if there are many great candidates there.” Today, according to the RF OP, more than 1.5 thousand members of the PMC work in 85 regions. Thus, at least 600 people will be replaced or re-elected at the end of September. We add that human rights activists cannot be members of the PMC for more than three terms in a row. Alexander Kholodov, who heads the supervisory commission in St. Petersburg, points out that this is just his case: “Therefore, our PMC will have not only rotation, but also the election of a new chairman. The situation is the same in Saransk and Bryansk.”

Let us recall that public monitoring commissions were established in 2008 to “monitor the observance of the rights of prisoners in places of detention.” Depending on the region, the PMC includes from 5 to 40 people whose work is not paid. It is impossible to independently declare one’s candidacy for the PMC, a person can only be nominated – any public associations (registered and operating for at least five years), except for political parties, religious denominations and NGOs from the registers of foreign agents. The applicant must submit to the OP the charter of the organization, confirmation of the absence of the status of a foreign agent, a passport and a work book. Of great importance are the recommendations of regional ombudsmen and branches of the OP RF in the constituent entities (although it is not necessary to have them). Approves candidates also OP RF; the list of applicants is not published.

Executive Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) Svetlana Astrakhantseva on Monday announced her nomination to the PMC of Moscow along with human rights activist Zoya Svetova. According to Mrs. Astrakhantseva, in the last three convocations, the OP has systematically rejected MHG candidates. “The MHG candidate, Yevgeny Enikeev, a well-known and very active member of the PMC of Moscow of the 2016-2018 convocation, received a zero score from 13 members of the Board of Directors of the OP out of 15 who voted,” she gave an example. According to Svetlana Astrakhantseva, this may indicate, among other things, the desire to “clean up and varnish the compositions of the PMC as much as possible so that they do not raise a fuss and disturb public opinion.” She points to the impossibility of knowing the criteria that guide members of the RF OP, giving a zero score to a person “having extensive experience in human rights work, including as a member of the PMC”, and at the same time giving the maximum score to “conditional Petrov, who a couple of years ago resigned from the post of head some pre-trial detention center and put forward by a conditional society of veterans of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

As a result of such many years of “negative” selection, former employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have firmly established themselves in the composition of the PMC, Ms. Astrakhantseva believes. At the start of the campaign for accepting applications, we recall that one of Kommersant’s sources in the PMC of Moscow indicated that this year the RF OP “will carefully weed out” former employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service. He explained that “their presence in a number of cases can discredit the work of the POC.” The head of the human rights organization “Siberia Without Torture” Svyatoslav Khromenkov, in an interview with Kommersant, then emphasized the obviousness of “the interest of law enforcement agencies in the work of the POC.”

Svetlana Astrakhantseva recalls that in 2021, the MHG and Zoya Svetova personally began to sue the RF OP due to the “non-transparency of the selection procedure” in the POC. “The court took the side of the chamber, indicating that the selection procedure took place in accordance with the law, although we did not dispute its legality, namely its opacity,” Ms. Astrakhantseva explained to Kommersant. “.

Representatives of the MHG were indeed refused, Mr. Kholodov agrees. He gives another example: “Zoya Svetova applied for the vacant seat of Marina Litvinovich (in 2021 she was deprived of the mandate of the PMC of Moscow after “repeated violations of the code of ethics of the PMC”, she is challenging this decision in court.— “b”) but then there were more worthy candidates with recommendations, that’s all.”

Passage to the PMC depends on the bias of the candidate, one of Kommersant’s interlocutors in the Moscow commission believes. “The right people will pass in any case,” says the editorial interlocutor. “And even if an unnecessary person submits an ideal package of documents, he will not be allowed to pass. Why some score more and others less is still unclear.” He believes that after the rotation in the composition of the PMC of Moscow, “nothing will change radically”: “They will pick up ballast and 10-15 really working ones. The rest will ensure the desired results of voting at meetings – for the election of a chairman, an executive secretary, or a vote on deprivation of mandates.

Maria Starikova