Martin Zarbabyan's commentary in the Advokatskaya Gazeta
On July 25, the Federation Council approved a law on extrajudicial blocking of accounts [period of blocking - for no more than 10 days] if case of suspicious requests (cybercrime) (bill No.908825-8).
Amendments are made to Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (supplemented with paragraph 5), Article 115.2 of the CPC and Part 3 of Article 186.1 of the CPC.
AN IMPORTANT DETAIL: the suspension of transactions is carried out within the amount of the account to which the funds are credited. Their withdrawal or transfer for storage is not provided.
Counsel and Attorney of Criminal Law and Procedure Practice at Infralex Martin Zarbabyan in his commentary to AG, points out that the legislator's decision to empower investigative bodies with the right to temporarily suspend transactions was caused by the necessity for a timely and prompt response to the increasing number of cybercrime.
"To effectively combat such thefts, law enforcement agencies must have appropriate mechanisms that would allow them to restore violated property rights and (or) prevent various thefts," - the expert said.
According to the lawyer, the amendments being introduced are dictated by the desire to effectively combat cases of telephone fraud and are named by the legislator as a new measure of procedural coercion, but, in fact, they are temporary security measures aimed at the subsequent resolution of the issue of imposing or not
imposing an arrest on property.
Martin also warned that the new, very broad discretionary powers, if used incorrectly by law enforcement officers, could lead to various violations of the rights of both suspects and other participants in criminal proceedings.
- Indicating the existence of sufficient grounds as the basis for applying this measure could cause problems in judicia land investigative practice.
- The lawyer explained that the suspension of operations could lead in some cases to disputes between participants in the process about the unreasonableness of such a decision.