YURIY CHAYKA NOMINATED AS RUSSIA'S PROCURATOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 006547 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR INL/PRAHAR DOJ FOR OPDAT (LEHMANN) AND OIA (BURKE) E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/20/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR KCRM RS SUBJECT: YURIY CHAYKA NOMINATED AS RUSSIA'S PROCURATOR GENERAL REF: A. MOSCOW 6268 ¶B. MOSCOW 5934 Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons 1.4 (B/D). ¶1. (SBU) President Putin nominated current Minister of Justice, Yuriy Chayka, as the next Procurator General to replace Vladimir Ustinov, who resigned June 2. The Federation Council's Committee on Legal and Judicial Affairs supported the nomination June 19; it will go before the full Federation Council June 23, where it is expected to win approval, and Chayka can then legally assume his duties. In his first public statement after his nomination, Chayka noted that the office of the Procurator General could be effective in fighting corruption, but he spoke against setting up special offices within the Procurator General to address corruption among senior officials. Instead, he hinted that pressing for revision of the legal education system in Russia might be among his early priorities. ¶2. (SBU) A professional lawyer by training, Chayka has worked as a prosecutor since his graduation from the Sverdlovsk Juridical Institute in 1976. He is one of the few senior holdovers from the Yeltsin era where, among other positions, he served as the acting Procurator General in ¶1999. Appointed Minister of Justice in 2000, Chayka has cultivated a reputation as being among the relatively few cabinet officers who have made themselves accessible to the public, including human rights organizations that have worked with him and other officials in the Justice Ministry to improve conditions in the country's prison system. Lyudmila Alekseyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, was among those who reportedly characterized Chayka's nomination as a good choice. ¶3. (C) COMMENT: Although Chayka had been mentioned as one of the candidates for Ustinov's job (ref A),his nomination still came somewhat as a surprise. While Chayka has built a solid reputation as a professional prosecutor and effective manager, his unquestioned loyalty to Putin was probably the most important factor in his choice. Under Ustinov, the procuracy had become a stronghold for the "siloviki" wing of the Kremlin. Observers claim Chayka's appointment should be seen as a reflection of Putin's desire to maintain a balance of power between competing Kremlin factions in important government posts. Attention will now turn to Chayka's replacement at the Justice Ministry. PolPred Dmitiry Kozak is being mentioned as one of the top candidates. Kozak's appointment as Justice Minister would bring him back to the capital, but it is unclear how he -- or anybody as Justice Minister -- could advance his political fortunes in that traditionally weak position. BURNS