RUSSIAN “JUSTICE.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 740, 19 April 1933, Page 1

RUSSIAN “JUSTICE.”

Judges Controlled by Soviet. BARRISTER’S STATEMENT. MELBOURNE, April 10. An old colleague of the barristers who have been selected to defend the five British employees of the Metropolitan Vickers Company who are being tried on charges of sabotage by the Soviet, Mr A. Patkin, now resident in Melbourne, said to-day that all were leading men in the legal profession and enjoyed a status equal to British King’s Counsel. Men of middle-age, Messrs Nicolai Komodoff, P. Lidov, A. Dolmatovski and I. Braude had graduated from Moscow University under the Czarist regime, under which they had practised in the Moscow Courts. With the exception of Dolmatovski, all had specialised in criminal work and taken part in many celebrated trials. Dolmatovski, who was also a graduate of Heidelberg, was noted in civil cases, and lectured in civil law at Moscow U niversity. None of the four was a Communist, j Mr Patkin said. They belonged to the left wing of the Liberal Democratic Party. Lidov had been chief of the Moscow police during the Kerensky revolution. Organs of Dictatorship. Although all had been educated in the old legal code of Czarist Russia, they had adapted themselves to the new methods of the Soviet, while they had tried to maintain the standards and the etiquette of the Russian Bar of pre-war days. In order to understand Russian justice it was necessar3*, Mr Patkin continued, to realise that the Courts were not divided from the political system. They were organs of the dictatorship to combat the enemies of the State. The judges were recruited, not from the bar. but from the Communist Party only. Some elasticity was allowed the Courts in ordinary criminal cases, but in cases of political importance like the present one the judges received full instructions from the party headquarters. Mr Patkin said it was practically certain that the verdict and sentence of the Vickers engineers had already been decided, and that the whole trial was a “ show ” for propaganda purposes. The 0.G.P.U., which was formerly the Cheka, or secret police, worked in close association with the Court, and both were subservient to Communist headquarters. Krylenko, “ Blind Fanatic.” Krylenko, the Chief Prosecutor whom Mr Patkin knew well while he practised as a barrister in Moscow, until 1922, Mr Patkin described as a blind fanatic, who considered any means justified in achieving the Soviet end. The task of the defending barristers was therefore a most difficult one. According to Soviet ideas, the delending counsel were not called on to defend their clients, but to help the prosecution investigate the crime from a new angle. A real defence of the British engineers would be impossible if it has been decided politically to condemn them. The barristers would run too much risk in attempting it. Judging by previous ” show ’ trials, such as tne Donetz Basin trial, in 1928, and the Menshevik Party case in 1950, j it was almost certain that the engineers | would be sentenced. It would tnen be i left to diplomatic action to save them from the bullets or dungeons of the O.G.P.U. But Mr Patkin thought they were very likely to be saved from any extreme penalty, as England was powerful enough to exert pressure on the Soviet.