New Year and Christmas holidays bring miracles. Santa Claus does not give in to fatigue and even on January 10 continues to delight with gifts. The lucky ones this time were notorious heroes, now former high-ranking law enforcement officers who are still serving their sentences in a strict regime colony. Former Deputy Prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk Region Dmitry Chulichkovhis colleague in a similar position in the investigative department of the TFR in the Sverdlovsk region Mikhail Busylko and their accomplice, who had previously moved from the investigative committee to free bread to the bar Vladislav Vostretsov. Handcuffs snapped on their hands in August 2021, when the glorious trio received solid terms in a strict regime colony in a high-profile criminal case of bribery on an especially large scale. Chulichkov – 9, Vostretsov – 9.5 and Busylko – 8.5 years, respectively.
The case resonated at the federal level. The public applauded the verdict. But months passed, the noise subsided, the agenda changed. Someone naive could even assume that the convicted VIPs rushed from the zone in the PMC “Wagner” to repay their debt to their homeland, washing away their corruption shame. But why so much stress when there is an all-powerful Santa Claus?! He woke up, heard the wishes made, and without noise and dust gave Chulichkov, Busylko and Vostretsov cancellation guilty verdict. Santa appeared as a judge of the Seventh Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction (Chelyabinsk) Galimova Natalia Rafailovna. On January 10, 2023, she crossed out the verdict and returned the case for a new trial. In the unspoken bureaucratic interpretation of the Russian Themis, this in practice means that the defendants in the final process will either be released “clean” or condemned symbolically. Congratulations!
Galimova can’t be wrong?
At one time the head of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Valery Zorkin emphasized the need for public control over justice due to “reduced opportunities for lawful control by other branches of government.” “Such control is an important guarantee against unlawful administrative influence on the court. Otherwise, it would mean the complete elimination of the judiciary from the dialogue with the society that delegated its powers to it, the secrecy of the judiciary, the return of the medieval principle “The king cannot be wrong.” This is especially true of those high-profile, high-profile cases…”.
So, even a superficial monitoring of the activities of that very judge Natalya Galimova with a comparison of her solutions according to Chulichkov, Busylko and Vostretsov cannot but raise questions. Ms. Galimova, 38, was appointed two and a half years ago as a judge of the Seventh Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction, in which she presides Sergey Minin. Since 2000, for five years, Minin, according to his public biography, was the head of the Main Department of Justice of the Sverdlovsk Region, the head of the Federal Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the Ural Federal District. Now let’s turn to the biography Vladimir Chulichkovthe father of one of our defendants: “Since December 2000, he has been deputy head of the Federal Directorate of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the Ural Federal District, and in December 2006 he was appointed head of the Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the Ural Federal District.”
What’s on the surface? Dmitry Chulichkov, who received 9 years in prison for corruption, has a father, Vladimir Chulichkov, who has a longtime colleague, boss, comrade-in-arms and fellow countryman – the current head of that same cassation court. And it was in this court (lo and behold!) that the verdict on “unfortunate Dima” was suddenly canceled. Coincidence?
Another link in this “random” community is the same Natalya Galimova. Now, under the chairmanship of Mr. Minin, she works at the Seventh Court of Cassation in Chelyabinsk, but the roots and stems of her fast career are entirely in Yekaterinburg, where, we recall, “two comrades” Chulichkov Sr. and Minin served. Climbing the judicial hierarchy, Galimova since 2005 passed various positions in the Kirov and Ordzhonikidzevsky courts of Yekaterinburg, as well as in the Sverdlovsk regional court. Interesting geography.
Well, and from the category of oddities … According to the published information, Judge Galimova is not at all distinguished by humanity and scrupulousness in sentences. An example is the well-known plot of 2018, when she judged a Yekaterinburg public figure Alexey Bezzub. Then the accused in detail described all the charms of Galimov’s justice in his criminal case, which many experts unanimously called dubious.
Where did the severity accumulated over the years go? Where did this unprecedented “humanity” scope come from, which the same judge is now showing towards Chulichkov, Busylko and Vostretsov? Indeed, in this case, everything turned out to be extremely clear for the courts of the two previous instances: the first and the appellate ones, which proclaimed the guilt of the defendants. And suddenly, when the public outcry subsided and the post-New Year calm reigns, “significant violations of the criminal law” are found in the verdict. Eureka!