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Oleg Shcherbinsky with his daughter / Photo: AP

Oleg Shcherbinsky with his daughter / Photo: AP
Russian Motorists Celebrate a Bitter Victory

27.03.2006

MosNews

A Russian driver sentenced earlier to four years in a labor colony after he had failed to give way to a speeding chauffeur carrying a local governor to a birthday party was acquitted of all charges this month. Supporters of Oleg Shcherbinsky said that was a bitter victory, and showed that Russia still had a long way to go before it became a true rule-of-law state.

Oleg Shcherbinsky walked free out of a courtroom in Barnaul, in Russia’s Siberian Altai Region, after his conviction in the accident that killed Altai Governor Mikhail Yevdokimov was overturned and all charges against him dropped.

The case of a Siberian railway worker initially sentenced to 4 years in a labor colony, after he had failed to give way to a limo that drove a regional governor, former stand-up comedian Mikhail Yevdokimov, triggered a wave of protests across the country.

A pro-Putin party, United Russia threw its support behind Shcherbinsky shortly before his appeal against the conviction was to be heard in a higher court in Altai. “The sentence for (Oleg) Shcherbinsky casts doubt on citizens’ certainty of the justness of judicial authorities in defending their interests,” United Russia said in a press release.

A top-notch lawyer flew to Barnaul hastily to win a case all but won already.

Vyacheslav Lysakov, the head of the Free Choice Motorists’ Movement, a nongovernmental organization that started the rallies in support of Shcherbinsky, told The Moscow Times he was convinced that “our protests played a decisive role in Shcherbinsky’s case. We demonstrated that civil society can influence unfair decisions in this country.” “This is a victory for us because we were able to defend an ordinary citizen,” he said. “But in a law-based state, things should work differently, and the courts should make only fair decisions.”

Viktor Pokhmelkin, an independent State Duma deputy and chairman of the Motorists’ Movement of Russia welcomed the reversal but he also said he “regretted that the decision was made only after pressure from civil society. In the future, I’d very much like to see our courts issuing verdicts and making decisions by strictly following the law, not under pressure from someone else,” he said, Interfax reported.

The New York Times’ observer covering the trial wrote: “Russians, it is fair to generalize, have become largely inured to injustices carried out by or for the powerful and the privileged. But the judicial fate of Oleg Shcherbinsky has struck a chord deep in the Russian soul, perhaps because it involves a celebrity and an ordinary guy, a car crash and the grossly unequal rules of the road….”

Shcherbinsky’s “conviction prompted large-scale protests across Russia in February and again this week, as motorists deliberately jammed traffic and adorned their cars with white ribbons. United Russia, the dominant political party loyal to President Vladimir Putin, seemed at first to blame Shcherbinsky for driving a car with right-side steering, which is common in that part of Russia. But the party took note of the protests, joining a chorus of public condemnation of the verdict. So did Putin’s newly created Public Chamber, a sort of shadow parliament created to advise the government on matters of public importance.”

Shchebinsky was freed on March 23, after 48 days in jail.

“Whether or not there were any protests, the court should have made its decision based on the facts of the case,” Shcherbinsky’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, who is also a member of the Public Chamber, told The New York Times by phone.

That Russian courts are largely cash-starved and dependent on the executive is hardly a revelation for anyone in this country or beyond its borders. Shchebinsky is, indeed, a “lucky s.o.b.” as many Russians put it — the government intervened in his case, although in truth the government did not really give a damn about his fate, but, prompted by nationwide protests, sought merely to improve their ratings by helping him out.

It is often said that roads are a mirror of society, in other words what happens on the road is a sort of a mirror image, a projection of what is happening in the country in general.

Russian rights activists have campaigned for years to abolish flashing lights and special horns for bureaucrats, but to no avail.

The Shcherbinsky case was the last drop. It is commonly believed that Russians rarely take to the streets to voice their protest over anything. For the most part, they merely ignore the rules of the game imposed on them as if giving the government to understand that it should mind its own business…

But the sentence handed down on Shchebinsky triggered a wave of protests across Russia.

Driving a car in Russia is like taking a rollercoaster ride. Different traffic rules apply to different groups of motorists. Those traveling in black chauffeur-driven limousines with tinted windows enjoy privileges, and if you ignore them, it seems you can easily end up in a labor camp.

On August 7 last year, Shcherbinsky, 36, was driving with his family to a local beauty spot in his second-hand Toyota. He indicated and stopped preparatory to making a left turn off the main road.

The car of Governor Mikhail Yevdokimov, traveling at a speed of nearly 150 kilometers per hour (92mph), flew up from behind, sideswiped Shcherbinsky and flew off the road and into a tree. The governor, his driver and bodyguard died. Shcherbinsky’s fault was that he had failed to get out of the way of Governor Mikhail Yevdokimov’s car fast enough. The court ruled that the accused should have noticed the flashing light on the limo’s roof and moved out of the governor’s way.

“Everyone in Russia understands they could easily find themselves in Oleg Shcherbinsky’s shoes,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, the member of parliament for Barnaul. “People are upset that bureaucrats break the rules and an ordinary person ... through no fault of his own, gets four years in prison. That is why there has been such an uproar.”

Protests against special traffic rules for VIP’s sparked by the Shcherbinsky case have brought to light the problem of reckless driving in Russia on the whole.

Most motorists here ignore simple safety rules, such as wearing seatbelts and keeping within the speed limit. Senior officials are not the only ones to do so but senior officials go unpunished. Ordinary motorists get away with it by bribing traffic police if they can afford to pay. The man blamed for the governor’s death, however, was not breaking any rules.

Mikhail Yevdokimov was on his way to the village of Polkovnikovo in Altai Region to attend a 70th-birthday celebration for cosmonaut German Titov. This was not the scene of a tragic accident that he was speeding to, not a gas blast or a terror attack, but a birthday party! Could he not have left his residence earlier, if he was so eager to be there on time? But no, he knew that with a flashing blue light on the roof of his car he would be there on time. He never made it there because his driver was speeding.

Yevdokimov, long known as a stand-up comedian, actor and singer, had won the high post without any support from Moscow. Moreover, he had defeated the incumbent governor who had the Kremlin’s backing. The local elite urged Putin to dismiss Yevdokimov, accusing him of mismanagement but the president ignored the appeal. In the wake of Yevdokimov’s death some observers speculated that the car accident had not been an accident after all.

The court in Barnaul blamed the governor’s death on the driver whose only fault was his failure to get out of the governor’s way. The trial showed that any person in Russia could end up in jail for not yielding to cars with flashing blue lights on their roofs and rude-sounding horns.

It was a bitter victory, but the reversal of Shchebinsky’s sentence has showed that Russia’s budding grassroots can make a difference.

http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2006/03/26/altvict.shtml