On December, 20th the State Duma refused to ratify the Protocol 14 for changes in the European Court of Human Rights, aimed at increasing the efficiency of European Court’s of Human Rights work. The Protocol would help to decrease a number of unconsidered cases and a period for preparing a ruling as well. (28-DEC-06)

Text: HRH/Moscow, by Yanina Savenko. Sources: svobodanews.ru, newsru.com

The main Protocol’s idea is to accelerate a case consideration. The Protocol proposes a possibility to decide admissibility of a case by a single judge, because larger number of judges complicates a case consideration process and makes a procedure longer. Nowadays the procedure takes from 8 to 10 years on average! Besides, the Protocol increases judge’s term of office from 6 to 9 years. The protocol also introduces additional criterion allowing the European Court to consider a complaint as inadmissible, depending on amount of damage to a suitor.  So, a mechanism of selecting appropriate complaints will be improved and thus a number of unconsidered cases will be lower. The Protocol was ratified by all countries – members of the European Union – except the Russian Federation. Without ratification of the Protocol by the Russian Federation the document won’t come into force. 

The State Duma is against European Court modernization
State DumaHowever, the State Duma Committee for Civil, Criminal, Arbitral and Procedure Legislation recommended the Parliament not to ratify the Protocol. According to the Committee, some Protocol regulations couldn’t be considered appropriate for the Russian Federation. In particular, deputies don’t agree with a list of criteria, describing an inadmissible complaint. The deputies also consider increase of judge’s term of office as an unfounded measure. Only 27 deputies voted for the Protocol, while 226 votes are the required minimum. Duma’s Vice-speaker Sergey Baburin advised colleagues to think about necessity to reduce Russia’s membership fees to the Council of Europe. “The Protocol is contrary to main principles of justice, moreover, our voluminous membership fees are being used for attacks on our country by the Council of Europe”, said Baburin.

the Russian Federation wants to dictate its own rules
“I’m very disappointed that after the State Duma voted against ratification of the Protocol 14 of the Convention for Human Rights, important and for a long time necessary changes in the European Court of Human Rights activities have been put off. Moreover, delay in justice means refusal of justice”, said Council of Europe General Secretary Terry Devis. “State Duma refusal to ratify the Protocol indicates that the majority of deputies strive for changing the country into totalitarian one. the Russian Federation is already the police state, police orders dominate in public life and a principal person is a man with shoulder-straps”, said Executive Director of All-Russian movement “For Human Rights” Lev Ponomarev. “Nowadays the Russian Federation takes first place in number of appeals to the European Court and human rights organizations widely use this practice for influence on Russian legislation and law enforcement in the Russian Federation. State Duma refusal to ratify the Protocol 14 severely cuts down these chances”, – said Liubov Vinogradova, Director of the Russian Research Center for Human Rights.