Explainer: What is Magnitsky legislation, and why does it matter?

Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian tax lawyer who exposed a $230 million (~$288 million in 2021) tax fraud scheme involving Russian officials in 2008. He was imprisoned afterward and died while in custody in 2009.

The first Magnitsky legislation - called the Magnitsky Act - was passed by the United States in 2012 where it is used for governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. 

These sanctions can include asset freezes, travel bans and visa denials. Since it first came to being, hundreds of entities and individuals around the world have been impacted, such as Russian officials and businessmen, Chinese Communist Party officials and other human rights abusers globally.

Since then, a number of other countries have passed similar laws, collectively called Magnitsky legislations, including Canada and the United Kingdom in 2017, the European Union and Australia in 2018, and Japan in 2019. More recently Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia followed in 2020, Ukraine and New Zealand in 2021 and finally Albania and Moldova in 2022

Globally these legislations have been used to sanction over 1,000 people and entities, with the United States leading with over 450 sanctions over all.

The first ever Magnitsky sanctions placed on any entity in Bangladesh occurred in December 2021, when the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as a whole, and seven members 

Those seven where former director generals of Rab, Benazir Ahmded and Chowdhury Abdullkah Al-Mamun, and former additional director generals of Rab, Khan Mohammad Azad, Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar, Mohammad Jahangir Alam and Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan. The last of the sanctioned was a former official of Rab Lt Col Miftah Uddin Ahmed.

Today (5 October) Australian MPs have called for Magnitsky sanctions to be placed on any individual or entity attempting to hinder democratic elections in Bangladesh.