Even Routine Law Practice is Difficult and Dangerous in Russia

Ethan Burger
Photo by Ron Aira

The courtroom gallery brimmed with lawyers during the trial in January of four men ac­cused of murdering Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta who was gun­ned down in 2006 at the elevator of her Moscow apartment.

The newspaper had paid a high price for its investigations into political corruption. In 2000, another Novaya reporter had been beaten to death with hammers on a Moscow street. Three years later, the paper’s managing editor died mysteriously from something that caused his skin to peel off.

For the lawyers gathered to watch it, the trial of those accused in Politkovskaya’s murder was itself a victory. The very fact there was a trial at all signaled that the rule of law finally mattered in Russia.

Suddenly, cell phones began to chime across the courtroom with text messages; Politkovskaya’s attorney—34-year-old human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov—had been murdered. A young Novaya Gazeta intern walking with him was also shot and killed.

Markelov was founder and president of Russia’s Rule of Law Institute. His murder had all the marks of a professional hit. He was shot point-blank in a crowd of people on a busy street by a gun topped with a silencer.

To his colleagues, Markelov’s kil­ling came as no surprise. The only question was why. Was his assassination related to a Chechen murder, in which he was representing the victim’s family? Or to the case of an environmentalist targeted by neo-Nazis? Or was it linked to attempts to stop the development of a mixed-use luxury real estate project?

Each matter involved powerful politicians, organized crime or well-connected military officers. And each seemed evidence to Markelov and his friends that the rule of law in 21st century Russia is a captive of the rich, the powerful and the well-connected.

For lawyers in Russia these days, life is difficult, even dangerous. Even attorneys who handle run-of-the-mill corporate work—including real estate deals, corporate contracts, environmental regulations and tax matters—have reported threats and harassment, according to the Moscow-based think tank Memorial Human Rights Center.

Though few will speak for attribution—or even allow their exact words to be quoted—American lawyers who once practiced in Russia say the law there has become increasingly politicized and unpredictable.

Click here to read the full story online from this month's ABA Journal.