The real authors of Russia's criminal justice An inside look at how public prosecutors manage the judicial system

A former employee at one of St. Petersburg's district attorney offices recently spoke to Mediazona's Maxim Solopov about what it's like to work for state prosecutors. According to the man, who resigned last year and does not wish to disclose his name, state prosecutors “run the country's courts,” literally writing judges' verdicts for them. Staff at prosecutors' offices can even be demerited or fired, if courts ever acquit anyone.

The man who spoke to Mediazona worked mainly with civil suits and police supervision, which is considered to be some of the least desirable work in the prosecutor's office. State prosecutors are charged with coordinating Russia's various crime-fighting agencies, and they're also responsible for maintaining the effectiveness of the police. In reality, however, prosecutors turn a blind eye to most procedural violations, as the police are overburdened and often unable to execute their work according to all the proper procedures. 

Work in public prosecutors' offices, Mediazona's source says, consists of two parts: fighting to ensure the rule of law, and creating for supervisors the appearance that this fight is actually happening. Five days a week go into keeping up appearances, and only on employees' two off days is anything done in the public's interest, the source says. In Russia's courts, prosecutors work very closely with judges, who are often so inexperienced that they're even unable to calculate sentences properly. Not infrequently, prosecutors actually write the verdicts themselves, and almost nobody is acquitted because it would result in disciplinary actions for prosecutors. In fact, district attorneys don't even take a case if they aren't confident it's a “sure thing.” Trials that end in acquittals can be grounds for a demotion or even outright dismissal, when employees come up for annual review.

In some instances, prosecutors replace one another in a trial and come to court knowing virtually nothing about the case. In these situations, prosecutors just do whatever the judge has rehearsed. Replacing prosecutors is a common practice, Mediazona's source says, admitting that he himself has presented charges in court for trials he knew nothing about. According to the source, corruption is not a serious problem at the lowest levels of prosecutors' offices, where salaries are also relatively low. But staff are aware of bribes exchanged at higher levels, he says, adding that a recent documentary film by Alexey Navalny's anti-corruption group about Attorney General Yuri Chaika apparently came as little surprise to most people working in Russia's public prosecutors' offices.

Mediazona's source says he was once offered money to “resolve a problem” with illegal migrant workers at a construction site, but he refused, though only because it was more important that he meet the department's prosecution targets. Pressures like this, the source says, help fight against corruption, but only at lower levels of prosecutors' offices.

According to the source, he went to work for the district attorney because he wanted the legal experience. Now he says of public prosecutors and Russia's other police agencies, “The whole law enforcement system works only to show that it's working.”

Consider our political cases against [Ukrainian prisoner Nadiya] Savchenko and [anti-corruption activist Alexey] Navalny. The judges and prosecutors there are doing all this not because they're scumbags but because they've got kids to feed. Why not be a d'Artagnan? Why doesn't someone rebel? It's easy, of course, to work in the prosecutor's office, if you know some businessman who says, ‘Well, I'll always hire you.’ But there aren't many like that.