MEDVEDEV CALLS BACK NEW LAW ON TREASON FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000230

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/30/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR RS
SUBJECT: MEDVEDEV CALLS BACK NEW LAW ON TREASON FOR
RE-DRAFTING

REF: 08 MOSCOW 3689

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Alice G. Wells; reason 1.4
(d)


1. (C) Summary: On January 27 Russian President Dmitriy
Medvedev ordered his administration to rework legislation
submitted by the White House on December 12 containing
amendments to the sections of the Criminal Law and Criminal
Procedures Codes before the State Duma and Federation Council
could take any action on it. The proposal, submitted by the
State Security Service, would have expanded the definition of
treason and added non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to
the list of banned recipients of state secrets. Human rights
activists who had criticized the legislation as overly broad,
hailed Medvedev's decision. The presidential intervention
helps restore Medvedev's image among a human rights community
dismayed by the recent restriction on the use of juries in
trials involving terrorism. End Summary.

Medvedev Triumphs Over Hard-liners
--------------


2. (SBU) Medvedev instructed his office to take a closer
look at proposed amendments to the Criminal Code and the
Criminal Procedure Code regarding state secrets, high treason
and espionage. On January 27, Medvedev's First Deputy Chief
of Staff Vladislav Surkov announced that Medvedev had "paid
attention to the opinions on the issue that have been voiced
in the media and society in general" and that "possibly there
was a danger that the concepts of state secrets, high treason
and espionage could be construed too broadly." On January 14
the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta had already reported that the
Duma's Committee on Laws would not discuss the proposed
legislation submitted on December 12 by the White House for
its review.


3. (C) Leaders of Russian human rights NGOs generally
supported Medvedev's action. Some had compared the proposed
legislation with edicts by Stalin and Hitler. Lev Ponomarev,
head of the NGO For Human Rights, said that Medvedev's
decision was "a landmark and pivotal moment" in which the
president had heeded the opinion of civil society. Oleg
Orlov from Memorial Center said he was pleasantly surprised
by Medvedev's action, but withheld final judgment until he
saw the reworked language. The Kremlin-linked Public Chamber
had also criticized the proposed changes (reftel),including
Medvedev booster Pavel Astakhov.


4. (C) Leonid Nikitinskiy, editor of Novaya Gazeta and the
head of an association to support jury trials, predicted on
January 19 that that Medvedev would order revisions to the
espionage law. He added that despite Medvedev's signing of
the law removing certain crimes from the jurisdiction of jury
trials, Elena Panfilova of Transparency International had
sent Medvedev a letter at the end of December recommending,
inter alia., that the proposed legislation be amended to
narrow the definitions of treason and espionage. Nikitinskiy
maintained that Medvedev had not wanted to sign the law
restricting jury trials, but that security organs had
countered that the only alternative was eliminating jury
trials altogether. He told us January 30 that the law was
stalled because of a general recognition that it was worded
too broadly. He said the definitions of espionage and
treason are being made more narrow and that the references to
"assisting foreign and international organizations" was being
redrafted to refer only to "international organizations."
Nikitinskiy thought this was a significant amendment but that
he did not know the ultimate fate of the law, implying that
it might simply stay bogged down at the Presidential
Administration in the re-drafting phase -- a very good thing
in his opinion.

Comment
--------------


5. (C) This marks only the second time that Medvedev and
Putin may have been on different sides of a proposed law,
given that the draft law to which Medvedev objected came from
the White House. In the summer of 2008, Medvedev pulled from
the Duma's review a proposed law on mass media after a
similar response by civil society and influential members of
the Public Chamber. However, our contacts downplay the
legislative back-and-forth as any reflection on the Putin
-Medvedev relationship; instead, the posit the proposed
legislation as the work of hard-liners within the siloviki
rather than the Office of the Premier. In the short run,
Medvedev's action has helped ameliorate disappointment among
the human rights community over the jury trial setback,
although it remains to be seen what compromise language the
President's Office will come up with.

BEYRLE