By Maarten den Heijer

Thanks Otto, Richard, Nicholas and Jason, for inviting me to join the blog. I could not help noticing a slight geographical bias in earlier posts, so please allow me to turn our attention to Russia. Or rather, to Russia’s attempt to hijack the European Court of Human Rights, the widely praised guarantor of human rights in Europe. The issue is a bit technical, but here goes. For some years now, the European Court of Human Rights faces a serious problem. Due to the accession of the Eastern European bloc to the Council of Europe in the mid-nineties, the relatively low standard of human rights protection in these countries and increased familiarity with the possibility to lodge a complaint at the European court, this court now has an astonishing backlog of around 90.000 cases. This often results in an excessive length of proceedings, and jeopardizes the very principles the court aims to protect. (See, for example, the Court’s frequent denunciation of the Italian judicial system for the very same reason). The answer to this problem has been the conclusion of protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which, if it comes into effect, would significantly increase the productivity of the Court. The protocol provides for, among other things, the set up of chambers of single judges, who can dispose of manifestly founded or ill-founded cases. The recently elected new French president of the Court Jean-Paul Costa, made the statement (in French) that protocol 14 would probably increase the Court’s productivity by 25%. A bit exaggerated perhaps, but nonetheless the protocol seems vital for the survival of the Court. However, ratification by all members of the Council of Europe is necessary to put it into effect and as of now, it has been ratified by all members ? except Russia. It seems that protocol 14 has provided Russia with the perfect bargaining tool to solve some of its public relations issues regarding human rights. First, a proper functioning human rights court is of course not in the interest of Russia, since figures tell that Russia leads the chart of countries against which complaints have been lodged (19.300 pending cases!). Perhaps more importantly, Russia is fed up with what Russian officials describe as a predisposed court. It is fed up with ever-continuing judgments concerning Chechnya (see also the recent CPT statement on Chechnya which perfectly summarizes the Russian non-cooperative attitude) and more specifically, it is fed up with the ever-continuing attention given to the Ilascu-case. The Ilascu-case concerned 4 Moldovan citizens of ethnic Romanian origin who were arbitrarily arrested, detained and molested in the de facto separated region of Transnistria. With a view to Russia’s support of the separatists, the Court held Russia partly responsible for these human rights violations. Russia was ordered to pay compensations between 120.000 and 180,000 euro to each of the victims (which it did) and ordered to ensure release of the two individuals who remained imprisoned (which it did not). Since delivery of the judgment in July 2004, the Council of Europe’s highest political body, the Committee of Ministers, has issued four interim resolutions on the Ilascu-case, in which Russia’s non-compliance with the judgment was repeatedly denounced. Now, what does Russia want? The official reason given by Duma spokesmen for not ratifying the protocol is that it endangers ‘main principles of justice’. A recent press release issued by ITAR-TASS (unfortunately available for subscribers only) gives us a clue as to Putins true strategy: This statement was made by V. Putin during a meeting with the members of the Commission on Human Rights and members of NGOs. In particular Putin called "clearly political" the examination of the "Ilascu case". He declared: "unfortunately our country faced a politisation of the Court’s judgments, in particular in the case of Ilascu. This is a clearly political decision, which undermines the confidence into the international justice system". Putin declared that the members of the Duma took in consideration this decision of the European Court [Ilascu] during the debates concerning the ratification of Protocol 14? It is no secret that a majority of Duma MP’s are mere string puppets of the Kremlin. Another intriguing detail is that what appears to have happened during the Duma vote on protocol 14, was that right before the vote a majority of MP’s left the plenary session. The remaining members voted against ratification, but this vote did probably not meet the required quorum. So, what Putin seems to suggest is that, if the Council of Europe could stop complaining about Ilascu, the Duma might suddenly remember the illegality of its earlier vote, consider it necessary to hold a new vote and subsequently accept protocol 14 – and the European Court will live happily ever after. The question is now whether the Council of Europe will bow to Russia’s pressure. The odds seem to favor Russia: during its last meeting, the Committee of Ministers decided to postpone further discussions on the Ilascu-case.