Photo: AP Photo/Alexander ZemlianichenkoFor the authorities in Moscow, the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights will no longer be binding. Although the case of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows that the Kremlin did not care about the judgments of the court in Strasbourg even before, the State Duma, by adopting new laws, formally broke with the European international body that obliges to respect human rights.
On Tuesday, the Russian Duma voted two laws by which Moscow definitively terminates its obligations towards the Council of Europe, from which it was expelled on March 15 due to aggression against Ukraine. These are legal acts that enable the authorities in Russia not to implement all judgments of the European Court of Human Rights passed after March 15.
This means that the European Court of Human Rights in Russia will no longer be the basis for reviewing the judgments of Russian courts. As it was said in Moscow, that court has become "an instrument of political struggle in the hands of Western politicians" against Russia.
As stated in the statement of the State Duma, all previous compensation payments according to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights will be paid in rubles and to accounts in Russian banks.
The European Court of Human Rights was introduced into the structure of the Council of Europe (CoE), the largest organization on the continent for the respect of human rights, as a body that supervises the respect of basic human rights enumerated in the European Convention for the Protection of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. By its nature, this court, based in Strasbourg, does not represent an instance above national courts, but proceedings are initiated before it only when all legal remedies in a member state of the EC have been exhausted.
The court, which consists of an equal number of judges from all the countries of the Council of Europe, has the authority to determine whether there has been a violation of any of the human rights in a specific case. According to the decision of the Court, member states are obliged to compensate the indemnified persons for the damage prescribed by the Court.
Even before the aggression against Ukraine, Russia had complex relations with this court. Due to the systematic violation of human rights, the largest number of cases before the court in Strasbourg were from Russia. For years, abducted and discriminated Chechens sought their rights before this court because Russia did not care about their rights.
Navalny case
Tensions were at their peak in the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, when Moksva refused to release him despite the fact that the European Court of Human Rights determined that there was a risk to Navalny's life and health.
Back in 2017, Strasbourg concluded that the proceedings against Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg, who were accused in Russia of defrauding the Russian subsidiary of a French cosmetics company, were unfair. After Navalny returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for Novichok poisoning, for which the Kremlin is held responsible in the West, he was arrested again and sentenced to almost three years in prison "because he did not report to the competent court in time." Then the Kremlin was asked to release Navalny immediately.
Despite the pressure, Moscow said that the request of the European Court of Human Rights could not be fulfilled, and the Russian authorities referred to amendments to the Constitution from 2020, according to which the national law in Russia has priority over international law and international courts. At that time, the possibility of the Council of Europe introducing stricter sanctions against the Russian authorities was not ruled out, and expulsion from the SE was also mentioned as the last step.
In the end, despite systematic violations of human rights for years, Russia was kicked out of the Council of Europe due to its aggression against Ukraine.
FoNet/DW
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