Lawyer Hryhory Hinzburg has been defending people for over fifty years
“My father was a lawyer: in Soviet times, after graduating from Kyiv’s St. Volodymyr (now Shevchenko — Ed.) University, he worked as a defense attorney. So even as a child I knew what the job of a lawyer is. Yet, I was not going to become a lawyer, for I fell for a different muse, Melpomene (of tragedy — Ed.). So in 1939, straight from high school, I was admitted to a Moscow theatrical college. I first applied to GITIS (State Institute of Theatrical Art — Ed.), only to fail, then to the now famous Shchukin School affiliated to the Vakhtangov Theater. But father was a somewhat conservative person: while he put up with such a name as the Lunacharsky Institute of Theatrical Art, he regarded the word school as something terrible. So he came, in strict secrecy, to Moscow and talked to my artistic director. As a result, the latter convinced me I had entered theater school too early. I felt so hurt that I went back to Kyiv. Simultaneously, in 1939, a new conscription law was passed, such that all people who turned 18 and had a secondary education were to be drafted. In this connection, higher educational institutions decided to admit an additional number of students, and I, to spite my father who took a dim view of me becoming a lawyer, entered the law department of Kyiv University.
“In truth, I was doing not so much jurisprudence as various sports in the first two academic years. This being my hobby, I won the rank of master or candidate master of many sports, while passing exams, half-jocularly, at the same time. Then the war broke out: I served in the marine corps reconnaissance, took part in the defense of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. Having been wounded three times, I was eventually demobilized and, after a stay in a Gorky hospital, went to Kyiv to finish my law course in 1948.”
“What made you opt precisely for becoming an attorney?”
“During the war, in Stalingrad, we received new recruits, inmates of the Karaganda prison camp. As a reconnaissance platoon leader, I was authorized to select soldiers for my unit. So I chose, among others, Starkov and Krasnobayev, two very strong fellows. The former was a safecracker, the latter a railway thief who had mostly robbed Japanese diplomats on the Moscow-Vladivostok trains. These guys turned out to be very brave and decent in all respects. Both of them failed to overturn their convictions. In 1943, on the Northwest Front, we could not for three months capture an enemy soldier to give us information, although we searched for one each night. As a rule, such sorties would end up with half the platoon killed or wounded on minefields or obstacles. As soon as we were spotted and came under mortar fire, practically all the young and inexperienced boys ran away, leaving behind the killed and wounded. So Krasnobayev, Starkov, and I made a deal that we would not desert each other whatever happened. It happened, however, that I was summoned to the headquarters for a refresher course, and when I came back I learned that while I was away Starkov and Krasnobayev were left heavily wounded on obstacles: unable to find their way, they decided to cut the barbed wire and go to our territory alone. I went there the next night. Starkov was still alive only to die in my arms. So, in my opinion, although these people had broken the law, they were sentenced very harshly. For they could have made talented inventors, engineers, doctors, whatever you like. And, to some extent in memory of those guys, I opted to be a defense attorney after graduating from the Law Department.”
“Did you become a defense attorney immediately after graduating from the university?”
“No. I was finishing my university course as an extension student because I had gone to work as a court-martial secretary to make ends meet. Having graduated, I still worked there until 1951, when I was admitted to the bar where I’ve now been working for fifty years.”
“What is it that attracted you to law?”
“The point is that it is easy for the state to accuse: it pounces on an individual with all its might. Even now, our courts are not yet a true judicial power. And under the conditions of a totalitarian regime, they were punitive institutions. So what attracted me was the struggle against the state-wielded accusative power. I was to wrench an innocent man out of these claws, for if somebody finds himself there, it is practically impossible to find the way out even if he is a thousand times not guilty. Almost no acquittals were passed in this country. Even now it is quite a rare occurrence.”
“What do you think about the changes that have occurred in our judicial system in the last ten years?”
“From the legislative angle, we are following the line of democratic Europe and democratization in general. We now have good laws and a good, truly democratic Constitution which, incidentally, set out that, in addition to other branches of power, we have a totally independent judicial branch.
“But in practice our judiciary has not yet become self-sufficient. It depends on each and everyone, on the city council chairman for premises, on the higher Ministry of Justice leadership for cadres, etc. The judicial branch is starved for money, having no funds even to buy pens and paper. So how on earth can the courts exist as an independent branch of power?
“In general, I favor maximum independence of the judiciary and think that a judge needs more than anyone else to have his independence and immunity protected, more than deputies, ministers, etc. Otherwise, judges will not be effective. But in practice, when the campaign was launched to strip people’s deputies of immunity, the law on the Status of Judges was also revised with a stroke of the pen. As a result, the police and prosecutors got too much power, while the judiciary had their rights significantly limited. I recently defended a judge tried for handing down an unlawful ruling. I defended the independence of judges in his person. Just imagine: a judge, who experiences a huge workload and earns a meager salary, is always under the impact of police whose products he works with. The police have an organized crime department vested with the broadest possible rights, they run a wide network of informants and keep the judge under surveillance. When a judge brings in an acquittal, they don’t like it. Suppose the judge brings in two or three acquittals in a row. The police will do their best to have these rulings overturned. But the judge handed down his rulings without being bribed: he turns out to be an absolutely disinterested person who made his decisions as a true free judge. The only weak point is that he is at odds with the judicial technique and inadequately justified his rulings. But it is very telling that none of the quashed acquittals were further brought to court — no one was convicted.
“With all this in view, I can assert that the judicial reform itself is good and needed, but it is going awry because the overall situation in this country is difficult. Bribe takers have appeared among judges, something unheard of before, let us say bluntly. This became possible because judges live a hard life. So there comes a moneybag and buys the judge lock, stock, and barrel because he has no apartment to live in but has children to feed, with the state unable to help. I am optimistic and think the time will come when judges will earn decent pay and won’t have to succumb to the temptation of bribery. Only then will they be immune and be real judges.”
“What in your view are the most basic failures of our judicial system?”
“Nowadays, a judge is appointed by the president for the first five years on probation, then the candidacies of judges go to the parliament to be confirmed in perpetuity. The current debate is whether or not this is good. Ideally, this is very good, but the whole point is what kind of person the judge is. For it is common occurrence that life judges are people who have no place in the judicial branch. And although we have good laws, changes in the criminal and civil procedural legislation are not as good as they could be. There are too many cumbersome and unnecessary procedures introduced because these projects were voted on in the parliament at the last moment, when the collapse of the judicial system was just months and weeks away. So I think the amendments made to the criminal and civil codes are still pretty raw. Besides, they were made without reference to the as yet not passed law on a new judicial lineup.
“We have one more problem: as parliament passes ill thought-out laws, the latter are endlessly changed. The resulting absence of stability harms everyone, especially entrepreneurs: no sooner do they begin to work under a new law than it is canceled or subjected to radical changes. But the main shortcoming is that even these laws do not work. Our courts hand down orders that are not obeyed by those who are supposed to do so. For example, I’m now handling the case of an individual who was acquitted by court three years ago. But prosecutors endlessly appealed the case, making it impossible to carry out the acquittal. The accused has not been rehabilitated even from the moral viewpoint, for none of his colleagues has seen the acquittal’s text because they were denied copies. When we finally persuaded the Prosecutor General’s Office to dismiss the appeals, nobody apologized or paid any damages. We brought suit for UAH 9,000 material and moral damages. The court ruled in favor of the claimant in June 2000. Yet, this individual has not received anything in the past eighteen months. Court orders are simply not obeyed. The existing a law on compensation for moral and material losses inflicted by unlawful arrest is not observed. Why? Because the necessary amount was not envisaged in the budget in time. The budget has just no item for it. And court officers can do nothing, although the state is obliged to execute a court order.”
“What do you think about the training of the legal profession in Ukraine?”
“We have a very good legal school. It should be noted at the same time that many various law academies, colleges, and departments have mushroomed lately. Law colleges are everywhere today, which I think is too much. Of course, we need a great deal of jurists, but now there is a glut. Besides, while still exists his majesty, influence, really professional lawyers cannot get jobs. Meanwhile, people with dubious education get good and well-paid positions.”
“And do such precedents occur among defense attorneys? For this could simply be dangerous.”
“The bar is very sick at present. The bar that existed under the Soviet regime has collapsed. Of course, it was not free and was subordinated to the Ministry of Justice, but there were advocate collegia and there was a rather high degree of self-rule. There were regional collegia of lawyers and a democratically-elected presidium, which could admit or deny admission. But now there is no such thing as a nationwide bar: there are a lot of firms, collegia, and legal advice offices licensed by the Ministry of Justice and eligible to plead in court. This practice, even enshrined in the Constitutional Court, is totally inadmissible, for people who work there are subject to no accounting, supervision, or further professional training: you can work however you want. The rules of legal ethics do not apply to them. As a result, the quality of advocacy is unbelievably low today: it comes down in fact to public deception. Instead of rendering genuine legal assistance to an individual, the so-called defense attorney goes to court where he pronounces empty sound bites without helping either the defendant or the judges. What was it that always distinguished a defense attorney from a prosecutor? Excellent knowledge of the case and related materials. Now we don’t have this, and many lawyers have no idea what a real criminal defense is. It is only the League of Ukrainian Advocates headed by Viktor Medvedchuk that works for untainted advocacy. The league favors the establishment of a nationwide accounting and supervisory body authorized to improve work standards. There is a normative and disciplinary commission of the bar, but all they do is issue licenses. I am not exactly sure if they really care about advocate staff development.”
“How do we get out of this situation?”
“Parliament has ignored for three years draft amendments to the law On Advocacy submitted by the League of Ukrainian Advocates. The bill has not yet been voted upon, for it is allegedly not a top priority. Nor does the president consider it one. But no radical changes are possible without this law.”
“The man in the street has a common perception that an advocate is always a rich person. Is this so?”
“No. For example, here, at the Pechersk Collegium, most lawyers are poor because the man in the street does not come to them. People prefer to turn to a well-known advocate, leaving the others without work. But these others are also professional lawyers and good experts. This is one side of the matter. The other is that a judge or an investigator advise the person they receive to turn to his/her advocate. This means the advocate does not defend his client. Instead, he sides with his investigator benefactor who supplies him with clients.”
“As far as I know, you knew Lee Harvey Oswald who was later accused of assassinating John Kennedy.”
“Visiting Moscow, I would always stay at the Hotel Berlin, now the Savoy. This hotel was and still is patronized by rich foreigners. I preferred it because it stood next to the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office. Everybody knew me, and whenever I set out on a journey, I rang the reception to book my room 405. And during one of my Moscow visits in 1960 I was told I couldn’t occupy my favorite room because it was taken by a first-class US tourist who was checking out a couple of days later. On the day of his departure I stayed behind in order to move into my room. A lady interpreter came and said the car was ready, but the room occupant was still in. Then a panic stricken chambermaid ran up and shouted that blood was oozing from under the room’s door. We burst in and saw the foreigner lying in the bathtub with his wrists cut. We pulled him out, called the ambulance, and thus saved him. This is how I first met Lee Harvey Oswald. We learned later that he had been seeking political asylum but was denied it. So he decided to put on a cut veins show. Following this, he was granted asylum and sent to Minsk. Three years later, when I was again in Moscow, a maid told me Oswald stayed at the hotel with his wife and two children, as they were moving from Belarus somewhere to the Volga. Although there was a thirty degree frost, he was wearing a plain cap, so we scraped up money to buy him a fur hat. As it turned out, he was leaving for America, not the Volga. Well after the Kennedy assassination, when I was again i n Moscow in 1964, the hotel manager cautioned me not to recall all this. It was a KGB order. And when Western journalists in Moscow asked me about this acquaintance, I naturally said, to their great astonishment, that I remembered nothing. And those who knew the truth joked that I thus became an accomplice in the assassination of Kennedy, for I may have chosen not to pull him out of the bathtub or not to give him money for the hat, and then he would have had his ears frozen off.”
“Mr. Hinzburg, did you handle many cases you are proud of?”
“Yes, very many. On my record are hundreds of acquittals and hundreds of the appealed and quashed sentences. And I am very proud that I helped those people.”
Editors’ Note: The Day congratulates Hryhory Hinzburg on his eighty-year jubilee and wishes him sound health and many courtroom victories in the name of justice.
