Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
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Publish date: October 19, 1998
Written by: Siri Engesæth
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The practise of using laymen as jurors in these cases is said to have been forced forward by the lack of professional judges, but Schmidt believes it is still not good, as he never had the impression that the real judges were overworked.
Judge Golets, who is to proceed over the trial against Nikitin, has said to journalists that he will use his regular jurors. At the court hearing, after the preparatory trial is over, the judge and the two jurors formally have the same power. "Our criminal proceedings code has regulations on this, but the practise is that the main judge makes the ruling by himself. But there has been rare cases where the judge retreated to make a ruling together with the laymen. If the laymen want a different ruling, the judge will say, ‘why do not you write the ruling?’," said Schmidt.
"I want to believe that Judge Golets is courageous. During the pretrial, the prosecutor jumped up and said, ‘the guards does not have a clearance, what if they find this interesting and wants to become spyes.’ Golets overruled that. But formally in Russia the prosecutor is in charge of making sure that the court’s rules are followed. He must not allow laymen without security clearance," said Schmidt.
"The dissidents trials during the Soviet era where kept closed by a uniformed guard at the entrance, who told arriving audience that all seats were taken. When the family looked inside, they saw the courtroom full of young men in almost identical clothes. I hope this will not be the case tomorrow."
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.