Graduates of the Human Rights House Network project “International Law in Advocacy.Electronic Human Rights Education for Lawyers”, advocates Gennady Okolov and Yegor Mylnikov in cooperation with the editor of the newspaper   “Russian Caravan” Galina Yartseva got the initiative group of human rights defenders from Novgorod involved and were able to achieve a public hearing in the Public Chamber of the Novgorod region on the efficiency of the judicial protection of Novgorod citizens.As a result of the Hearing on ” “The problem of realisation of citizen rights to judicial protection in the Novgorod region” held at the Public Chamber of the Novgorod Region a resolution that required the courts to use ECHR standards was adopted. During the discussions, it was concluded that, in Russia, and in the Novgorod region, in particular, there are grave violations of citizens’ rights to a fair trial taking place.The participants of the Hearing also raised a question of the standards of establishing evidence in criminal cases in the light of the ECHR decisions. The resolution on the results of the discussion was adopted unanimously, and, according to lawyer Yegor Mylnikov, has already shown its positive effect.  Thus, it is noteworthy that, according to Yegor Mylnikov, in the judgment, which was passed after the hearing, the court was directly guided by the norms of international law.

  “The work in the project helped me and Gennady Okolov, who also took part in the hearing, to better navigate in the possibilities of the international protection of human rights.Now the appeal to the European Court of Justice has become customary practice, and the courts are trying to apply international law in their decisions more and more often. Most importantly, at the hearing the citizens for the first time demanded the authorities to use standards of the European Court of Justice in litigation. This means that the rules of international law cease to be a tool for legal professionals only.  Ordinary citizens are also aware of the Convention and seek to ensure that their rights are guaranteed not only by the constitution of their country, and that is the main result of our hearings, “- commented on the event lawyer Yegor Mylnikov (left).

The manager of Human Rights House Network  program “International Law in Advocacy” Lyudmila Ulyashyna (right) also noted that the significance of the event lies in the fact that such hearings help to convey to the state officials the public opinion about the existing problems: “The strength of our program is that we show lawyers that judicial protection is just one of the ways of promoting and protecting human rights.By participating in those campaigns and events that are held by public organizations at the same time providing professional legal assistance, a lawyer helps  to protect the public interest.In such cases,   there are no victims yet, but there is already an identified problem.Thus human rights defenders and lawyers can help to bring this problem into attention of state officials in the form of clearly defined demands. These demands are easier to formulate, if the lawyers use the concept of human rights protection. When conducting public hearings on the problems of the judicial authority in Russia, for example, lawyers and human rights defenders bring attention to the problem and form recommendations for the state. Thus, such hearings is a help to the state and the evidence of civil society deamand to a real changes in the national legal system. “

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The Electronic Human Rights Education for Lawyers (EHREL) is a project under the Human Rights House Network program “International Law in Advocacy” prepared and implemented in cooperation with Human Rights House Foundation’s partner organizations.

The project is designed to bring lawyers from CIS countries together via online human rights training material prepared by international and national experts. The learning process is supervised by a team of managers, regional partners and coordinators.

The project facilitates efforts to fulfill commitments made within the framework of the United Nations, the Council of Europe and other international organizations to support implementation of human rights (HR) obligations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.

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