Legal assistance to victims of a fire in the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping center

In Kemerovo, on the second day after the fire, an initiative group of professionals was organized - lawyers, psychologists, journalists, consultants, entrepreneurs and public figures who do not know how to speak on the square and are not very helpful in clearing rubble, but really wanted to do three things in this situation:

1. help the victims (harm to health, loss of loved ones) in the way they can, exactly according to their profile, each: consultations and other actions on all issues that have arisen in their lives in connection with the fire;
2. to help other people who were hurt by the tragedy, to help the victims - our acquaintances and strangers who want to help, but feel some distrust of the proposed methods of providing assistance through state and well-known public structures;
3. to satisfy the request of society and the victims themselves, first of all, in the objective establishment of all the facts of the tragedy and the fair punishment of the real perpetrators. We have created a public center for helping victims in the Zimnyaya Vishnya mall - http://kemerovohelp.ru

Legal

• Probably for the first time in the history of modern Russia, more than 30 well-known law firms in the country (law firms and collegiums, including those from Kemerovo; information on the composition of the association is available on the website of the center) have united to achieve the goals set out.
• We will be happy to include in the work all colleagues who are ready and able to work on the principles:
1. jointly (sharing information with the consent of the principals, consistency of strategy and actions),
2. professionally (forming best practice),
3. free of charge (even the costs of the case will be covered from a fund specially created by lawyers for this purpose)
4. indefinitely (until the task is solved).

• We continue to receive offers of help from lawyers and lawyers every day, we record them all and include them in the work as needed.
• We have already begun to work: we have concluded agreements both with those who have received harm to their health, and with those who have lost their loved ones; entered the case as representatives of the victims; began to develop uniform standards of work and an action plan, a strategy.
• Those victims with whom we spoke personally have many questions about fire prevention and rescue actions, other circumstances of the case, as well as other legal issues.
• We fix and separate all issues: criminal case - for lawyers in criminal cases, civil (inheritance, family and other issues) - for lawyers and lawyers without criminal practice (there are many of them and they are ready to work) from Kemerovo in joint  work with a united law firm from all over the country.

PS: Today, to the investigator’s question to the victim’s lawyer: “Why does the victim need a lawyer? Why don’t you trust the investigation? We must protect his interests” - so people in trouble will be calmer, more comfortable, more confident, and there is a slightly greater chance that they will be able to establish the truth about the causes and such terrible consequences of the tragedy.

Together we can do more!

Author

Dmitriy Alexandrovich Malinin

Chairman of the Bar Association "Jurproekt"