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Russia ratifies Protocol 14 on human rights court reform
Published: 15 January, 2010, 15:10
Edited: 27 February, 2010, 18:53
TAGS: EU, Russia, Europe, Human rights, Law, Robert Bridge
The Duma has ratified Protocol 14 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (ECHR), which paves the way for court reform.
On Thursday, Boris Gryzlov, State Duma House Speaker, announced that the lower house of the Russian parliament would vote for the protocol after EU Council of Ministers came to agreement over Russia’s original reservations against the document.
“The EU Council of Ministers,” Gryzlov said, “…unanimously agree with Russia's position on two major points.”
Russia was the last of the 47 Council of Europe member-states to ratify Protocol 14, which is designed to overhaul the procedures of the Strasbourg court.
Russian parliamentarians had objected to a number of issues, including a lack of collective leadership regarding case reviews. They also insisted that the “troika of judges” handling each case should include a representative of the country whose case is under review.
Initially, some member states of the Council of Europe expressed harsh criticism over Russia's
refusal to ratify the Protocol, but consultations between the to break the impasse.
“All issues concerning Russia, which the Strasbourg court will review,” Gryzlov told legislators, “will be settled with the participation of Russian representatives.”
Gryzlov added that the national judicial system… will have priority in the review of issues at the
Strasbourg court.
The European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France is an international judicial body established under the European Convention on Human Rights to monitor respect of human rights on a state-by-state basis.
The Court was instituted as an official entity on 1 November 1998, and by the end of 2005, it had delivered 5,968 judgments.
The Ministers of the Council of Europe supervise the execution of Court judgments. This body cannot force states to comply with its rulings, and the penalty for non-compliance is expulsion from the Council of Europe.
Andrei Denisov, First Deputy Foreign Minister, told a Duma meeting on Friday that ratification of Protocol 14 will strengthen Russia's position in its dialogue with the Council of Europe on the most pressing issues in foreign policy.
Russia’s “non-ratification” of the protocol had been repeatedly used by Russia's counterparts in Europe to impose responsibility on the Russian authorities for the workload of the European Court, Denisov said.
“Everybody felt pressure both at the level of parliamentary contacts and at the level of the talks among representatives of the executive authorities,” he added.
According to sources close to the negotiations, Russia received numerous “statements of assurances” from the European Court and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe that helped to ease Russia’s previous apprehensions about the protocol.
Presently, over 100,000 grievances, which include approximately 25,000 in Russia's file, are being processed in the European Court of Human Rights.
Denisov noted that 40 percent of the complaints are related to improper conditions of imprisonment and non-fulfillment of requirements of Russia's judicial instances.
“When we put our judicial system in order, there will be no need to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” he said.
15.01.2010, 13:17
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Interesting that the Russia Duma wants to is move towards the ECHR, when the public in the UK want to leave it. The Conservative opposition party in the UK has mentioned that if elected in the May general election they will withdraw from the ECHR. People in the UK have had enough of the fact that some laws passed by parliament are ruled illegal by the ECHR as they are "against peoples human rights", Conty Cash is correct, the ECHR is a political tool, it is anti-British, it shows in its rulings against the UK, and if Russia joins it will find itself in the same position as the UK is now, and the "first victors" will be Russia's illigal immigrants
Don't kill yourself with kindness. Some are victims of human rights. Used as the face of another for another. Set up for failure. There's always a reason for a crime, reaction and punishment, righting. It's uniting the two that matters. I have a hunch prisoners endure crappy conditions because the state is not making criminals a priority or a caste.
CADCZ, It will certainly be a positive step for the UK if they withdraw from the ECHR political circus. Europe tries to take UK cash and then impose its will on it, in a staunch anti British fashion. I also think the ECHR route will bring nothing but trouble for Russia as the European political masters pull the strings. The EU plays a corrupting role at the moment in all european structures. They exist as a block, which should entitle them to a sigle vote/presence, but then they come with all their individual national votes. Even worse within the EU, they have sub blocks with aligned anti Russian sympathies. Until the EU has a single vote/presence in wider european structures, then all these structures will be fundamentally corrupt and politically biased organisations. Russia should have aimed at a non political court structure, before it signed up. Whilst I always like to be positive and have faith that we have not miscalculated here. My fear is that the ECHR will continue to be a political tool utilised to create immense political problems for Russia. I even think that in the end it could see us exit the Council of Europe itself. But this might be an end game already considered by us. My view is that we should have narrow interfaces to the EU,PACE, NATO ... not be actively within them. We should, in line with our multipolar ambitions be seeking more world wide organisations, in this respect, joining Britain in a world wide court structure would have been a much better option. Let's hope Britain can show leadership here. For others, it was the design of the Titanic to be watertight; its operatives hovever, took it and operated it in such a fashion as to make it non watertight and display its inherent fundamental robustness flaws.