Andrey Mochalov Biography

Photo: Violetta Savchitz lawyer Andrei Mochalov, who defended many Belarusians accused of “political” articles, and himself who first became accused in a criminal case, and then sentenced to two years “chemistry” was amnesty and left Belarus. In an interview, Plan B. Mochalov told how he collected things for “chemistry”, how he felt in the role of a client, not a lawyer, and whether it is necessary to plead guilty when you are detained under a “political” article.

How long have you left Belarus and in which country you are now? I left three months ago, now I am in Germany. Have you expected this or preparing to go to Chemistry? But I still prepared for Chemistry: I sold a car, gathered, prepared for everything. When the amnesty law was issued, I had to go to the “chemistry”, I had three days. But in the inspection - and this is the case when I love the internal papers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - they told me that the law has already been adopted and cannot be sent to a correctional institution, since they themselves should apply an amnesty.

That is, their order is this: in whose disposal you are, he applies an amnesty to you. So praise to the internal papers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I was actually very lucky that I did not have time to call on to serve the punishment, because it is almost unrealistic to amnesty from there: two violations are drawn there and you can no longer claim an amnesty.

The inspection decides only where to send, and the “chemistry” itself chooses you to work. So I do not know if I would have gone to clean the cowsheds or other difficult work. Did you go to it intentionally? In the old law on the bar there was a two -stage system: there was a disciplinary commission that made a decision whether there is a misconduct in the actions of a lawyer or not.

Then the council council, if the commission made a decision on the exclusion, excludes you. That is, this is not done by the commission. I was at the disciplinary commission, where I was voiced by the decision on my exclusion. Usually, from this moment, to the decision of the Council, about a month pass, for which lawyers are completing cases, the last time they go to customers to the pre -trial detention center and the colony.

In my case, the council took place not a month later, but two days later. But the Council forgot about his decision to inform me. Therefore, I continued to work as a lawyer, expecting a notification from the Council. To my question, how often they practice this, the answer was "never." It is clear that the court said that this is reinforced concrete evidence and there is no reason not to believe.

That is, people were ready to put me on “chemistry” for two years instead of saying: I'm sorry, it’s just a jamb, we gripped. They would have nothing for them, even a reprimand at work.

I never understand the motives of these people. You were a fairly noticeable lawyer, defended the first “political”. Can I be ready for this? I understand that this is a fake criminal case, I have not committed crimes, my conscience is pure, so I treated this simply and did not want to lose my nerves because of this. It is impossible to prepare for this, this is in any case a shock.

But I will say that for me as a lawyer it was a very cool experience. Firstly, to see how you yourself perceive this system from the inside, secondly, to understand how your client feels in the status of the accused, thirdly, it was important for me to realize what your client wanted from you. I had two lawyers and becoming the accused, I wanted, as a client, to understand what I want from my lawyer.

Andrey Mochalov. Photo: Violetta Savchitz - How did you get from your lawyers what you wanted? I was protected by very good people. My first lawyer Vitaly Bragin, unfortunately, became the accused himself, he was imprisoned a week before my trial. Then I had two duty lawyers who did not even read the case. I refused them in court. Then I had a lawyer who I attracted, who was also a big pro.

While you were read out a decision on a criminal case, where you are a suspect, interrogations and so on, did you read your rights and the Code of Criminal Procedure? After I was deprived of my license, I left the country for two months to rest. When I returned back, the control system worked at the border and a couple of days later the investigator from the factory USK called me and invited me for interrogation as a suspect.

You didn't think to leave the country right there? I have never seen myself a political emigrant and I don’t want to be. I just heard my article and realized that this was some kind of stupidity. He came to the investigator with his lawyer and the investigator said so that it was not serious. The fact is that Judge Kostyukevich was offended by my principles. She wrote a statement in the RUVD of the Zavodsky district, they say, check this person, if he went to court with a fake certificate.

The RUVD conducted a check, sent materials to the USK, where they replied that there was no corpus delicti and painted in detail why. The situation was clear without my interrogation, even legally such an action cannot be a corpus delicti. But then with iron will the prosecutor of the factory district is issued a decision to initiate a criminal case. I did not have terrible searches, handcuffs, pre -trial detention centers.

I was really lucky.How my colleagues joke, I had a demo version of the criminal: I went through, looked, liked everything, at the end I got an amnesty. And he wrote them a review in the form of a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee. This is a standard saying: “Do what you can, and be what will be” will always be relevant, even when they start shooting directly at lawyers.

It is clear that there is practically no legal sense, but at the same time there are many good examples. Of course, there are many terrible examples, but at the same time there are examples when secretly, quietly, backstage, lawyers agree to softened for customers. Therefore, I can’t say that the lawyer is not needed at all. Of course, a lawyer is not needed, who does not get acquainted with the case at all, or a lawyer who writes posts about extremists, journalists - and there are such lawyers who support the propaganda narrative, there are a lot of them.

But there were still good lawyers who quietly but effectively protect customers. Ideally, take a lawyer on recommendations. And it is worth concluding a preventive agreement in advance. You may not need it, but you will know that in which case a defender will come to you. In the administrative case of a lawyer, one can not call, but in the criminal it is needed at least in order not to say excess.

As a lawyer, you can say what to do when you were already detained in a “political case”: to recognize everything in order to reduce the term and save yourself or to fundamentally disagree with politically motivated accusations? It is believed that a person must make such a decision himself, because both one and the other option may be both correct and wrong, you will never guess.

The lawyer must clarify the right to the client and consequences: what will happen with such a choice, and what - with this. I can say to myself: I could not be silent. My business was initially suspended for six months, they say, sit quietly, wait for the termination of the statute of limitations and if no one is against the matter ceases. But, as it turned out, this is not my case, I did not want to sit quietly for three years and not to object to all procedural stupid things.

That is, I would be in my business, and if I had difficult articles, I believe that I would not recognize anything. But those who make such a decision cannot be judged, we were not in their place. For the adoption of obviously unlawful sentences, it is necessary to answer before the law. And there is no need to invent any system so that this person is not a judge in the future: they do not take judges with criminal records.

Perhaps public repentance to society may seem enough. The form in which she should be in Belarus, who should fall under her and what punishment it is necessary to decide to professionals. The main thing is not to go to extremes and adhere to the golden middle. From history textbooks, I remember German lustration when it is an objection about why all Nazi criminals are not sitting, why the Nazi judges continue to work as judges, sounded an extremely simple answer: these are the Germans that we have, we cannot replace them with other Germans, we can’t take and plant half a country at a time.

Therefore, I have no unambiguous attitude to this issue. Do I need to judge them for inciting national enmity and eating? From the point of view of jurisprudence, there should be no divisions “its own, not its own”, “adheres to a certain ideology, does not adhere to”. Criminal prosecution should be universal. Now there is a good precedent of the International Criminal Court, when the court is on the criminals of Rwanda and he shows that propagandists could be a source of the beginning of the genocide over national minorities.

I think this case will be used in the future where there is a lot of where on the national level including. But, again, my sincere belief that the courts should only be over people who have committed a particular crime. It cannot be such that some journalist of Belteleradiocompany will be judged only because he is a journalist of Belteleradiocompany. Often people forget that there is moral condemnation, not for everything should be criminal punishment.

A lot of important fact is a public censure of the people next to whom you live. This is also important and for many it can affect more than criminal prosecution.