MOSCOW, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed legislation on Monday designed to keep severely ill criminal suspects out of jail, the Kremlin said.
The amendments submitted to parliament are part of a justice reform campaign that Medvedev, struggling to make a mark more than halfway through his four-year term, has called a priority.
They come as Russia faces persistent criticism from rights groups and governments over the death in jail last year of an ailing lawyer who colleagues say was denied adequate medical treatment as his health deteriorated.
The proposed amendments would firm up legislation on pre-trial detention, making it less likely for a severely ill suspect to remain behind bars, according to a Kremlin statement.
It said 276 people died from disease in pre-trial detention in 2008 and 233 last year.
Medvedev has advocated broader implementation of less restrictive measures such as house arrest -- part of a push for reform of a justice system still burdened by the Soviet legacy of show trials and presumption of guilt.
Kremlin critics say that despite plenty of talk, Medvedev has so far done little to rid Russia's police, courts and prisons of corruption and abuse by authorities who use the system for their own personal, political or financial gain.
Medvedev's commitment to penal reform has been tested by the death in a Moscow jail in November 2009 of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, an adviser to Hermitage, once the biggest equity fund in Russia.
Colleagues and rights activists claim the same law enforcement officers Magnitsky accused of a multimillion-dollar tax fraud are responsible for his death and have urged Medvedev to ensure they are prosecuted.
Parliament is dominated by the ruling United Russia party and is highly unlikely to reject the proposed legislation, but how effective it will be is less clear.
Russia's justice minister said in July that the number of people being put in pre-trial detention had decreased but that courts in many cases were still jailing minor-crimes suspects.
(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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