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Russia liberals applaud new criminal procedures
MOSCOW, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Russian liberals and legal experts on Friday applauded parliamentary approval of a new criminal procedures code that curbs the sweeping powers of prosecutors and entrenches the right of trial by jury.
A law replacing Soviet-era procedures, promoted actively by President Vladimir Putin after years of post-Soviet debate, was easily approved on third and final reading by the State Duma lower house on Thursday. All parties broadly backed the measure.
Liberal deputies had spearheaded the campaign to introduce the changes as part of efforts to modernise Russian laws and speed the country's integration with the west.
"The new code as a whole is without question more progressive. I believe this is indisputable and any legal expert will say the same," liberal parliamentarian Viktor Pokhmelkin told Reuters, describing the final text as a compromise.
"There are more guarantees for human rights, tougher requirements in conducting investigations, norms for detention. These have been put off for a few years, but their adoption is surely a good thing."
The new provisions call for country-wide introduction by 2003 of trial by jury for cases involving serious crimes. Jury trials are currently available sporadically in only a handful of Russia's 89 administrative regions.
Change has been dramatic in some areas, stripping the power to issue arrest and search warrants from state prosecutors, who blithely abused legal procedures under Josef Stalin. Starting in 2004 only the courts will have the power to issue such warrants.
The new procedures also allow defendants to admit guilt and avoid a court case. At the moment all cases require a hearing. Soviet-era "people's assessors," who helped judges but had little influence on verdicts and sentences, are to be abolished.
Pokhmelkin said liberals had sought more curbs on prosecutors, who still must agree before cases can proceed.
Vyacheslav Volodin, of the centrist Fatherland-All Russia movement, said the gains secured in the new code were limited in the context of international law.
"From the standpoint of what is happening in our country, this is undoubtedly a breakthrough. It does strengthen human rights," he said. "But if you look at international standards which we always say we aspire to, it is a small step forward."
The code had been approved on second reading, where major amendments can be proposed, last July and its first reading dates back to 1997. The legislation must still go before the Federation Council upper house, but most members of that chamber offer little resistance to initiatives backed by Putin.
Debate on altering the criminal procedures code had dragged on for years as Russia's post-Soviet leaders tried to shed the communist legacy of dubious and often flouted legal procedures.
Public concern over the power of prosecutors has risen in the past year, as the result of prominent cases in which masked police have carried out searches under orders from prosecutors.
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