Ivan Yuryevich Pavlov (; born 13 January 1971 in St. Petersburg, Soviet Union) is a Russian advocate and open government activist. He participated in the development of Russian federal and regional freedom of information legislation. He specializes in protecting the right to access government information in Russia, and defending citizens from ungrounded accusations of disclosing state secrets, high treason, and espionage. Additionally, he focuses on raising public awareness of the need for modern legislation on state secrets and the use of current legislation as a means of repression.
As of 2022, his law office is in Tbilisi, Georgia; previously it had been in Russia.https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/7dgo94/advokaten-som-forsvarte-navalnyj-putin-skjoenner-naa-at-han-har-gjort-en-stor-feil. VG.no. Retrieved 10 March 2022
Biography In 1997, Pavlov received his J.D. degree from St. Petersburg State University, and was admitted to the Russian defense bar. Pavlov received his Candidate of Law Science degree (Ph.D.) in 2009 from the Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences.
From 1998-2004, Pavlov headed the Environmental Human Rights Center Bellona (St.-Petersburg, Russia).
FOI initiatives In 2004, Pavlov founded the Foundation “Institute for Information Freedom Development”, or Freedom of Information Foundation (FIF). For ten years, FIF rendered legal assistance to citizens and organizations, defending their rights to information access. FIF specialists also audited government bodies' official websites for compliance with actual FOI legislation requirements.
In 2014, FIF was included in the state register of "foreign agent" NGOs. After a series of court hearings where Pavlov and other lawyers of the FIF contested the "foreign agent" status, the Freedom of Information Foundation formally suspended its activities.
Team 29 However, the work has not ceased. Several ex-FIF staff members, led by Pavlov, have been joined by Team 29, the only Russian non-governmental initiative performing professional defense of the citizens’ right to freely look for, receive, transmit, produce, and distribute information by legal means. Team 29 transformed into a new organizational structure without having to create a legal entity, as a free partnership of lawyers, journalists, and civil activists. In 2015, Pavlov became the leader of Team 29. Since February 2015, Team 29 protects the rights of Russian citizens to court information and performs public outreach activities, publishing materials on governmental closeness and legal advice for citizens on its website.
On 16 July 2021, the website of Team 29 was blocked by Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media at the request of Prosecutor General of Russia. According to official letter, Prosecutor General of Russia identifies the Team 29 to Czech nonprofit organization "Společnost Svobody Informace" which was designated undesirable on 29 June 2021. Team 29 doesn't agree with that but it made a decision to dissolve itself because of risks involved with criminal prosecution under article 284.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia against its members. Team 29 will delete its digital archive including judicial documents. Team 29 recommends to delete direct links to its documents because such links can be regarded as a participation in the activity of undesirable organization and be grounds for criminal prosecution. Former members of Team 29 will continue to work in their personal capacity.
High-profile cases
Access to information
Access to texts of national standards
In 2006, Pavlov initiated a court case that resulted in a judicial obligation for the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology (Russian: Rostechregulirovanie) to publish texts of national standards online. Previously, a fee was required for the public to access the standards. FIF lawyers won their victory in the first court instance in February of that year. The Rostechregulirovanie filed a cessation appeal. Its hearing was scheduled for 23 May 2006, but the federal agency's officials did not attend the court. The hearing session was adjourned to 8 June. On 31 May 2006, Pavlov was assaulted and taken to hospital with head injuries. Since the assaulters took none of his personal belongings, Pavlov linked the assault to his professional activities, namely the case on open online access to national standards. The criminal case was initiated but the criminals have not yet been found.
Contesting of the presidential decree on classification of information on military personnel losses in the time of peace
In 2015, Team 29 lawyers, led by Pavlov, prepared a claim against President Vladimir Putin's decree classifying information on military personnel losses within special operations during peacetime. The claim is supported by well-known human rights activists and journalists who believe that the decree would help state authorities to suppress the situation at the Ukrainian South-East. The team argued that Putin had exceeded his powers by classifying information regarding military losses as Russia's constitution clearly states the constitutional right to freely seek, receive and circulate information which can only be restricted by federal law. On 13 August 2015 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled the decree to be legal. The ruling gives grounds to apply to the constitutional court and request a proper assessment of how information in Russia is classified as state secret.
Defense of citizens persecuted by state security bodies Pavlov has been involved with the defence of rights of citizens charged by state security bodies of high treason, unlawful access to security bodies’ secret archives, or state secret disclosure. According to statistical data from the Judicial Department under the Supreme Court of Russia, from 2010 until the first half of 2017, 57 sentences were given for high treason, 11 cases for espionage, and 137 cases for state secret disclosure. Zoya Svetova, a Russian human rights journalist, has defined the current state of affairs as immersion of Russia by “spy mania”.
High treason cases
The Alexander Nikitin case Pavlov defended Alexander Nikitin, an environmentalist accused of high treason for having prepared the research report The Northern Fleet: A Potential Radioactive Contamination Threat for the Region. Nikitin was detained from February to December 1996; his case was widely covered by media, NGOs, and political organizations in Russia and Europe. Amnesty International recognized Nikitin as a prisoner of conscience. In 1998, the court sent the case back for further investigation. In 2000, Nikitin was fully acquitted by the Supreme Court of Russia.
The Grigory Pasko case Pavlov represented Grigory Pasko, a military journalist arrested in 1997 and accused of high treason, alleging that when Pasko had flown from Russia to Japan, some documents had been taken from him and a preliminary studied had shown that they contained state secret-compromising information. The Amnesty International recognized Pasko, too, as a prisoner of conscience. In 1999, the military court of the Pacific Fleet sentenced Pasko to a year of imprisonment for abuse of official powers, immediately including amnesty; he was released from the courtroom.
In 2000, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of Russia canceled Pasko's sentence and the case was sent back for re-examination. On 25 December 2001 the military court of the Pacific Fleet found Pasko guilty of high treason in the form of espionage and sentenced him to four years of imprisonment. Having stayed in a penal colony for more than half a year, Pasko was released on parole.
The Svetlana Davydova case
Ivan Pavlov defended Svetlana Davydova, who had been accused of high treason for a phone call to the Ukrainian embassy. Davydova became the first person accused in accordance with Article 275, which states that any assistance to a foreign state or organization, or to its representative, in activities aimed against security of the Russian state, is considered high treason. The Davydova case is the first known accusation of pro-Ukraine espionage since the beginning of the war in Donbas.
According to the investigation, in April 2014, Davydova noticed that a military unit placed near her home was empty. She heard that a soldier from the associated military unit had said that he and his unit were being sent on a mission, and she informed the Ukrainian embassy. Eight months later, on 21 January 2015, she was arrested by an FSB operational group.
On 1 February 2015 Davydova dismissed her assigned counsel and replaced him with Pavlov and Sergey Badamshin. After introducing independent defence attorneys, she withdrew her previous testimony, explaining that she had made it under duress. On 13 March 2015 her attorneys stated that her case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
The Gennady Kravtsov case
In May 2014, Gennady Kravtsov, ex-officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate, was detained in Moscow upon suspicion of high treason. He left the service in the Main Intelligence Directorate in 2005 and had a foreign travel passport since 2011. The FSB public relations center informed that the case was initiated because Kravtsov had been supposed some information on Russian space intelligence activities to email to the radio engineering center of the Swedish ministry for defense. Kravtsov's wife, meanwhile, stated that he submitted a job resume to a Swedish organization and it was rejected since he was not a Swedish citizen. Kravtsov's defense team states that the resume contained no information comprising state secret.
As Kravtsov's defending attorney, Ivan Pavlov stated that the defense never denied the mere fact of resume submission but argued against the statement that the resume had contained any information comprising state secret. On 21 September 2015 the Moscow City Court sentenced Kravtsov to 14 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony. On 4 February 2016 the Supreme Court of Russia revised Kravtsov's sentence and reduced his imprisonment term to 6 years.
The Evgeny Petrin case
Pavlov represented interests of Evgeny Petrin who had worked in the Moscow Patriarchy department of external church relations and was detained in June 2014 upon accusation of high treason. According to the investigation, Petrin had provided to the CIA representatives a piece of information comprising state secret when he had worked in the department of external church relations. Petrin himself stated that he was an FSB Captain and had worked in the church department under cover. His brother stated that Evgeny had detected a Ukrainian businessman who, according to Petrin's information, “had assisted to dissent between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian one, had performed anti-Russian activities in Ukraine, and had recruited people, e.g., in Russian government bodies”. Evgeny Petrin more than once asked the security bodies to initiate a criminal case against that person. However, according to his brother, neither the Russian Orthodox Church nor the FSB had been interested in that so that “they decided to discredit Evgeny, to make him a traitor”.
On 14 June 2016 Petrin was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony and to a fine of 200 thousand rubles for espionage in favor of the US. Pavlov, as Petrin's defending attorney, says that Petrin was “coerced” into confession. Pavlov assesses Petrin's sentence as “a compromise between severity of accusation and failure of evidence”: “The prosecutor demanded a cruel punishment, 19 years of imprisonment, and the Moscow City Court sentenced Evgeny to a minimal term of 12 years. Had he been really guilty, they should have punished him to the full extent. The court decision on a minimal term shows that it wend hard with the prosecution”.
The Sochi cases