Moscow lawyers were denied a deferment from mobilization, Kommersant reports , citing a response from the Ministry of Justice to the lawyer community. The document says that lawyers will be sent to the army on a general basis, and the Ministry of Justice cannot influence the situation.
“We inform you that due to the absence of the Russian Ministry of Justice at the moment of the opportunity to influence the circumstances caused by the introduction of partial mobilization, you have the right to independently apply for appropriate clarifications from the Russian Ministry of Defense,” the ministry said.
Moscow lawyers insist that sending them to war will lead to a violation of the right to qualified defense enshrined in the Constitution, disruption of the work of the investigation and the courts. Lawyers from other regions do not intend to seek delays from mobilization, the publication found out. Readiness to demand a delay was confirmed to Kommersant only by lawyers from the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
Meanwhile, the head of the human rights organization Agora, Pavel Chikov, writes that St. Petersburg lawyer Andrei Nikiforov, who was mobilized on September 25, died in the war in Ukraine. It is known that this happened on October 7 near Lisichansk. The circumstances of his death are not specified. According to Chikov, this is the first death of a mobilized lawyer.
