Lawyers argue on legality of cancelling jury in case on attack on Nalchik

The experts interrogated by the "Caucasian Knot" diverge in their opinions on how much lawful the decision is to replace a jury for a panel of judges in the case on attack on Nalchik.

Tatiana Khamukova, advocate of the defendants, made comment on the decision and called it "unconstitutional".

"The procedure for consideration of this case had been defined long ago, during the investigation, when the majority of defendants spoke in support of a jurymen panel. Then, nobody even heard about this sort of legislation. It was adopted much later, and the law, as we know, has no retroaction," said Ms Khamukova.

At the same time, other lawyers assert that the accusers' request was moved on lawful grounds.

"As to myself, I think that the law passed by the State Duma is anti-constitutional, however, it was passed, and nobody has challenged it so far," Yuri Kostanov, representative of the Russian Federal Bar in RF's Supreme Courts, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "Therefore, it should be enforced, whether you like it or not. And, certainly, bringing litigation into conformity with the Law is possible at any stage thereof."

According to the lawyer, should the trial continue with jurymen, their verdict all the same can be easily challenged by the prosecutor's office, as the one passed with violation of fundamental remedial rules, one of them being the provision on the court composition.

We remind you that the idea of the law, according to which jurymen were replaced by a panel of professional judges, appeared three years ago in Kabardino-Balkaria. Its author was Yuri Ketov, the then public prosecutor of the republic and nowadays Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the KBR. Human rights activists spoke against the amendments he offered, asserting them to be contrary to the Constitution, however, the law was approved by the State Duma and signed by Russian President.