Amnesty 2020 for the 75th anniversary of victory

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

For two days now, the Russian media have been discussing the likelihood of adopting one of the projects submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in March 2020, under an amnesty for the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. There are 2 options under consideration. The choice of deputies determines which articles will fall under the amnesty.

A little about the background of the issue of pardoning prisoners

Large-scale festive and solemn events dedicated to the significant anniversary: the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War are scheduled for May 9, 2020. According to the established practice, on such dates, an amnesty is always held for prisoners who serve sentences in colonies and prisons.

The initiation of such an event is aimed at demonstrating humanity on the occasion of a significant date for certain categories of prisoners. In 2019, numerous assumptions were made about the possibility of holding an amnesty, and even discussions and discussions were held on him about which articles fall under it.

However, the expectations of the prisoners in detention facilities and their relatives did not come true. The last amnesty was timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, so assumptions about its possibility in 2020 seemed logical and plausible. Then 231,558 prisoners were released.

In the media, at the beginning of the third decade of March, there were reports that a bill of pardon had been submitted to the State Duma for the 75th anniversary of the Victory over the Nazis in 1945.

Amnesty means forgiveness or oblivion of the crimes committed, but the content of the project on its implementation is different - some categories of convicts are released, the term of detention is partially reduced, the reasons for an act of humanity may be different. Therefore, the question of which articles fall under the exemption from punishment interests many.

What projects are under consideration by legislators

There are two amnesty projects under consideration in 2020. The possibility of such a humane act is enshrined in the current Constitution of the Russian Federation. This year there is an excellent opportunity to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

There are two drafts, and which articles will fall under the amnesty depends on which of them the State Duma deputies give preference to.

Sergey Ivanov's project

S. Ivanov, a deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party, submitted the developed draft amnesty for consideration on January 13, 2020. According to experts, it duplicates the law adopted by the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2015, with the only difference that it is planned to release not such a significant number of people as in the year of the 70th anniversary. It examines the possibility of showing mercy in relation to:

• to those who cannot be imprisoned for health reasons - disabled, terminally ill, pregnant women;
• to people with difficult life circumstances - who are in the care of disabled family members or minor children;
• to those who took part in hostilities, liquidation of man-made disasters, awarded orders and medals in the Soviet Union or in the Russian Federation;
• to prisoners who have reached retirement age;
• to those who committed a minor offense as a minor or received a real term with a delay in serving for some weighty reasons.

The amnesty in the introduced bill does not provide for the total release by the 75th anniversary of the Victory of all those who fall under the listed categories. The choice of candidates for forgiveness from the state depends on the severity of the crime committed and the weight of the term. Sometimes the short duration of the remaining term before serving becomes decisive.

It is difficult to list which articles fall under the amnesty, but it is possible to say with confidence who is not entitled to it - terrorists, murderers who have committed a crime on purpose, malicious violators of the prison regime, recidivists (especially those who have already been amnestied and were again imprisoned).

Boris Titov's project

B. Titov, Commissioner for the Rights of Entrepreneurs under the President of Russia, submitted to parliamentarians the draft amnesty for 2020 for the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. The project was discussed back in the fall of 2019, but the list presented by the Ombudsman is somewhat different from that proposed by Sergei Ivanov.

Lawyers, who carefully studied the document, noted that in a nutshell, the question of which articles fall under the outlined proposals can be answered in three words: businessmen, minors and pensioners.

In B. Titov's draft, most of the points are really devoted to those convicted of economic crimes: illegal business, minor and medium-sized economic violations that were committed without the use of violence. In total, Titov's project mentions 19 "entrepreneurial" articles of the Criminal Code of Russia.

Alternative options

There is information, not mentioned in several sources, that two more projects were prepared by the Russian HRC. RBC claims that nothing is known about one project. About the same amount of information about the second option, which was mentioned in his speech by the head of the Human Rights Council M. Fedotov.

The presence of several options is explained by the fact that the preparation of the amnesty was entrusted to two commissions in the Duma at once, and they worked on projects in parallel.

There is information about the document prepared by Sergei Shargunov, a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. It offers amnesty to participants in the Moscow case and the termination of criminal proceedings against participants in opposition rallies. It was rejected on the grounds that it was impossible to combine criminal and administrative pardons.

When will it be accepted and the timing

Based on the experience of such events in Russia, it can be confidently asserted that the implementation of a legislative act takes up to six months. It is much more difficult to say when the project, created on the initiative of the President of Russia, will be adopted.

In the document submitted by S. Ivanov, the limitation of the term for which a pardon is possible, namely, five years, is considered a serious flaw.

B. Titov, being interested in protecting the rights of entrepreneurs, paid too much attention to economic crimes, did not cover many criminal articles that are not related to economics.

As for the project from the HRC, there is no information about it at all, and it does not appear anywhere. Presumably, one of the options will be adopted in April this year.

In this case, the terms are called different - from the middle of the month to the pre-holiday days. The opposition press is confident that there will be no amnesty. This was publicly announced by Echo of Moscow.

Summarize

Amnesty for Victory Day is in the active preparation stage:

1. Two deputy commissions and individual deputies of the State Duma worked on the projects.
2. They take into account many categories of prisoners.
3. Each of the generated documents has general categories and separate articles.
4. Deputies from various political parties took part in the creation of bills, and the initiative itself was initiated by the President of Russia.