Following the possible suspension of Russia’s membership in Interpol, the Ukrainian authorities proposed to exclude our country from the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP). According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, her Russian colleagues, by their reaction to the events taking place in the adjacent territory, “brazenly ignore” the standards of this organization, thereby causing “irreparable damage to the values and reputation of the association.” The Charter of the IAP provides for a unanimous collective decision on exclusion, however, given that both Russia and China will participate in its discussion, it will be almost impossible to reach a consensus.
Photo: Thomas White / File Photo / Reuters
Photo: Thomas White / File Photo / Reuters
An appeal by Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova with a call to deprive Russia of membership in the MAP appeared on the official website of the Ukrainian oversight agency. According to the author of the message, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office “impudently ignores” the standards of professional responsibility of the MAP.
The speech, in particular, according to Irina Venediktova, is that the Russian supervisory agency “fully supports the war in Ukraine” and, moreover, “threatens to initiate criminal cases of treason” against its opponents.
Thus, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, “irreparable damage is caused to the values and reputation of the association.”
The Russian Prosecutor’s Office, unlike the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, does not initiate or investigate criminal cases. And by “threat”, obviously, one should understand the recently issued prosecutorial warnings to prevent certain illegal actions. In one, it was about the facts of possible treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code) in the form of providing “financial, logistical, advisory or other assistance to a foreign state” during a special operation of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, and in the other, together with other law enforcement agencies, she warned about the responsibility of participants and organizers of actions not agreed with the authorities.
Note that MAP is a kind of international trade union of prosecutors, which includes 183 organizations from 177 countries. The organization was formed in 1995 with the aim of prompt and effective international cooperation between prosecutors to counter the rapid growth of transnational and organized crime, including drug trafficking and money laundering.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia has been an organizational member of the IAP since its inception, and since September 2010, its representatives have been elected members of the IAP executive committee. In 2017, the world’s first representative office of the association was opened in Russia (St. Petersburg).
According to the current charter of the IAP, the issue of suspension or exclusion from the membership of this organization is put on the agenda by the Secretary General, who sends a corresponding letter to the executive committee, consisting of the president and vice presidents.
In addition to them, the committee includes from 10 to 25 ordinary members. In principle, the further fate of Russia’s membership in the MAP depends on this body. The executive committee has a month to answer the general secretary about whether he supports the suspension of membership. In this case, the opinion must be unanimous. If it is not possible to reach a consensus, then the decision of the issue is postponed to the next meeting of the executive committee.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia promptly did not comment on the initiative of Ukrainian supervision. In the regional office of the IAP in St. Petersburg, Kommersant was recommended to contact the association’s secretariat located in The Hague for comments. However, there was no response to Kommersant’s request from there either.
Meanwhile, the website of the MAP itself indicates that the members of its executive committee are a representative of the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of a number of countries that have not imposed sanctions against our country in connection with the events in Ukraine: Georgia, China, Cameroon, South Africa and Chile. It is clear that it will be very difficult to reach a consensus together with those who decide to support Ukraine’s initiative.
In addition, it is possible to suspend the membership of any country in the IAP due to non-payment of the annual fee. However, according to Kommersant, Russia is one of the few participants that always does this in a timely manner.
A source close to the supervisory agency told Kommersant that even in the worst case scenario – suspension of membership in Interpol and the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy – the international legal activities of Russian law enforcement officers will not be suspended, since relevant agreements have been concluded with many countries, which no one is going to terminate yet. In addition, Kommersant’s interlocutor noted that the principle of reciprocity operates between states that are not bound by contractual relations.