Moscow Further Tilts the Scales Against Those Charged with Crimes to Ensure It Collects Fines and Exercises Greater Leverage over Businesses and Individuals

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 31 – The Russian government has tightened the courts as far as criminal charges are concerned to the point that the number of individuals and organizations exonerated after hearings has been reduced to the vanishing point. But those figures involve only those who actually go to trial or avoid having their cases dismissed on technicalities
.    Now, in order to ensure that the government collects massive fines against individuals and organizations who in the past were able to avoid convictions because of errors by investigators and prosecutors, the Russian justice ministry is planning to allow the government to correct any mistakes such officials make and allow trials to proceed.
    In the past, technical errors by officials were enough in many cases to have the cases tossed in court, not only giving the Russian government a loss but costing it income from fines and otherwise reducing the impact of its charges (moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/31/v-pravitelstve-potrebovali-sokratit-dolyu-opravdatelnih-prigovorov-rossiyanam-a159608).
    This latest move further tilts the scales against those charged with crimes and thus is consistent with the Putin regime’s efforts to make the courts function as reliably as other parts of the power vertical. But it seems to be driven in the first instance by a calculation that this will allow the government to convict businesses and thus collect more money in fines.
    At the very least, the threat of such collections will give the Kremlin additional leverage against businesses, other organizations and individuals as the regime moves from authoritarianism toward totalitarianism and does so not by improving administration but by protecting the regime from losing in court. .