Today Chairman of the Russia’s Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin has taken part as a guest of honor in the VI International Youth Law Forum held in Saint-Petersburg State University together with NGO Association of Russian Lawyers.
The Forum was attended by young lawyers, representatives of authorities, scientific and business communities of Russia and a number of guests from abroad.
In his speech Mr. Bastrykin told about the history of investigating bodies and gave a detailed account of bills prepared by the Investigative Committee, namely, proposals aimed at tightening control in defense and production industry; introduction of criminal liability for building financial pyramids and managing them; a bill providing for putting a direct ban in tax and duty legislation on abuse of rights in the field of taxation and providing such powers to tax authorities and others.
Mr. Bastrykin also talked about priority of international and national laws, noting that “fundamental principles of the UN Charter are violated all the time, double standards are used intensively. For the countries that do not agree to such a policy, there is a wide range of measures: all the way from coercion to military intrusion. Therefore there is a question – do we need the unconditional priority of international laws over national ones?”. “This is why rejection of the priority of international law and its automatic implementation in the national one is a concern of our sovereignty, not only legal one, but economic, political and if you ask me visual, and of our state sovereignty as a whole”, - the Chairman stressed.
At the same time Mr. Bastrykin reminded of events in Ukraine, noting that “the department for crimes related to use of prohibited means and methods of warfare of the Main Investigations Directorate is investigating 45 cases opened over events in the south-east of Ukraine. 28 of them have been joined to form a single proceeding with the case over crimes committed by representatives of Ukrainian military and security agencies in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics against peace and safety of humanity”. The Chairman said that White Book about this fratricidal war was prepared for publication, pointing out that “it is published to draw attention of international community and key international human right organizations to outraging acts of violence against civilians, in the first place against defenseless women, children, elderly people and urge international community to more active peaceful settlement in the south-east of Ukraine”.
Head of Media Relations V.I. Markin
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