topic: | Human Rights |
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located: | Russia |
editor: | Igor Serebryany |
No tangible progress has been seen in Russia's position over the implementation of the decisions made by the European Court for Human Rights in the last three years, despite Moscow claiming otherwise, the Council of Europe said.
"The [alleged] 'positive steps' undertaken by [Russian] authorities are not enough to describe them as tangible progress," the EU parliament said, referring to the ECHR rulings over freedoms of speech and public assembly made as long ago as in 2017.
According to the Council of Europe, Moscow failed to execute the ECHR decisions made three years ago. In 2017, the court ruled that the Russian government violated the rights of 23 complainants who were denied their applications to hold public events dated back to 2009-2011. The applicants complained that they were detained during various rallies or punished for conducting solo protest actions. They asked the court in Strasburg to intervene to restore justice.
"The Russian government was obliged by the court to conduct systematic reforms of the practice concerning freedom of assembly but failed to do that," the document says. The Council of Europe gave Moscow a deadline in June 2021 to present a fresh report about the implementation of the court's ruling.
According to the non-government organisation European Implementation Network, Russia did not execute 88 per cent of the decisions made by ECHR in the last ten years. In that regard, Russia has been second to Azerbaijan only: Baku ignored 100 per cent of the rulings made in Strasburg, a lawyer in the Memorial human rights society Marina Agaltseva notes.
For comparison, Ukraine ignored 60 per cent of the ECHR decisions while Georgia put a blind eye on 20 per cent.
Agaltseva adds that the majority of the complainants that have to wait for implementations of the rulings for six years or even longer.
Russia's participation in the CoE was suspended in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea. In June 2019, the parliament of the Council of Europe voted to end Russia’s suspension. Those voting to restore Russia’s full rights in the council argued that if Moscow left the organisation – as it had threatened to do – would deny Russian citizens the right to bring cases before the European Court of Human Rights.
After the restoration, the Russian government paid over 1 billion rubles (about $14 million) as compensation given by the ECHR to Russian citizens. But in August 2020, the Russian finance ministry said it ran out of money allocated for compensations and so it has frozen all payments indefinitely. So far, Russia's arrears amount to €400,000 in the first half of this year.
In April, the ECHR demanded from Russia to explain how the national authorities deal with the cases of domestic violence, violations of adoptive parents' privacy and other family issues.
Image by RENE RAUSCHENBERGER