Russian MVD Admits It has Misinterpreted Law to Block Those Seeking to Rehabilitate Their Ancestors

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – Russians who have sought to have their relatives, repressed in Soviet times, rehabilitated have been caught in an almost hopeless vicious circle. Officials wouldn’t give out the files on such people if they hadn’t been rehabilitated, and their descendants couldn’t apply for the rehabilitation of their ancestors unless they had these files.

            But now, Meduza’s Kristina Safonova suggests this system may be breaking down, with the interior ministry admitting it has been misinterpreting the law and the Supreme Court ruling in favor of actor Georgy Shakhet who had been caught in this trap as he has sought to have his grandfather rehabilitated (meduza.io/feature/2019/07/06/dostup-k-delam-repressirovannyh-no-nereabilitirovannyh-predkov-poluchit-nevozmozhno-akter-georgiy-shahet-pervyy-komu-eto-udalos).

            After three years of fighting with the Russian judicial system, Safonova says, Shakhet became “the first who was able to show in court that this vicious circle arose out of an incorrect interpretation of the law by the law enforcement organs,” a victory that may or may not offer hope to others now caught in that situation.

            The Supreme Court on Friday overruled a lower court and “directed the Main Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow Oblast to acquaint [Shakhet] with the criminal case of his grandfather,” who was shot in December 1932 after a trial by a Stalin-era troika.

            Shakhet found out about his grandfather’s case by accident: his relatives didn’t want to talk about him, but his doctor told him he had seen his grandfather’s name on a list of repressed people maintained by the Memorial human rights organization. The actor went to court in November 2016 when the interior ministry refused to release the documents of the case.

            The interior ministry officials said that his grandfather had been convicted of an ordinary and not a political crime and therefore the law “about the rehabilitation of victims of repression” did not apply. Shakhet went to a local court, appealed its decision to the Moscow city court, and finally won his case in the Supreme Court.

            Two attorneys who helped him, Marina Agaltsova of Memorial and Anna Fomina of Command 29, said that many officials believe that if someone wasn’t rehabilitated early on, then he hardly can be rehabilitated now.  Between 1993 and 2018, they report, almost three million people were rehabilitated, but “almost a million” cases were rejected.

            Because decisions about rehabilitation are made in the procuracy and because Russians typically avoid going to court because of its costs, its risks and the likelihood they won’t win, the number of legal cases regarding this situation has been relatively small.  But Shakhet has been willing to go to the end.

            In his case, the lawyers continue, the interior ministry admitted that its officers had been interpreting the law incorrectly in denying those seeking case files, something “unprecedented” in their experience.  “Officials of the law enforcement organs never acknowledge that they have incorrectly applied the law,” Fomina says. “The judge was surprised.” 

            Shakhet is extremely pleased by his victory and now plans, with the necessary documents in hand, to secure the rehabilitation of his grandfather.  If he succeeds and if his case attracts attention, it is entirely possible that this could trigger a new wave of rehabilitations, one almost as large as the one that swept through Russia in the early 1990s.