The Shakhet case
The case of actor Georgy Shakhet is a rare success: access was obtained to the archival criminal case file of a person who had not been rehabilitated. Georgy sought to review the file of his grandfather, Pavel Zabotin. The case contained no state secrets.
In refusing access, the courts and the archive relied on the so-called “Tripartite Regulation” (Order of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the FSB dated 25 July 2006 No. 375/584/352).
In Shakhet’s case, the Supreme Court noted the refusals issued by the lower courts and ordered that he be granted access to his grandfather’s criminal case file. We were able to review the materials.
The Kotenkov case
Since 2021, I have been assisting Alexander Kotenkov in obtaining access to the file of his great-grandfather, who was executed for participation in an anti-Soviet uprising. The archive and the courts repeatedly refused access on the basis of the Tripartite Regulation.
We challenged the refusals before the Constitutional Court, which supported our position: files of non-rehabilitated persons should be governed by the general rules on access to archives, not by the Tripartite Regulation.
After the Constitutional Court’s ruling, access was refused again, once more citing the Tripartite Regulation. At present, we have filed a second complaint with the Constitutional Court.
A 2024 FSB archival access case (Helmut Friedrich’s father)
In 2024, I obtained access to the archival criminal case file of the father of the well-known German physicist Helmut Friedrich, who was executed in 1945 as a “war criminal”. Since 2011, Helmut had tried to review his father’s file. Two long and unsuccessful rounds of litigation did not bring him closer to that goal.
Seeing with his own eyes the basis on which his father was executed was crucial for him: he had grown up with the belief that his father was a war criminal.
We changed the approach and arguments that had previously been used in his archival requests. To our relief, the FSB archive provided the file for review. In February 2024, I received the long-awaited folder — it contained fewer than 30 pages.
