RFE/RL: Russia Seen As Snubbing European Rights Court On Chechnya
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posted by circassiankama on October, 2009 as CHECHNYA
September 30, 2009
Russia Seen As Snubbing European Rights Court On Chechnya
(RFE/RL) -- Activists and lawyers have seconded accusations leveled against Russia in a recent report
by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in which the group alleges that Moscow
routinely ignores rulings by the European Court of Human Rights,
contributing to a climate of impunity in the North Caucasus.
Russia
has so far paid monetary compensation and legal fees awarded by the
court. But rights activists say Moscow has largely failed to adopt
requested policy changes to prevent similar violations.
"The
government has to pay, but it is also obliged to investigate the
offenses and to eliminate the factors that made these crimes possible,"
Aleksandr Cherkasov, an activist with the Russian rights group
Memorial, tells RFE/RL's Russian Service. "In the North Caucasus, there
have been neither investigations nor systemic changes to the structures
that generate these crimes."
Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, which oversees the court, and as such has an obligation to obey its rulings.
Another
Memorial campaigner, Oleg Orlov, once accused Russian authorities of
treating reparation payments to European Court plaintiffs as a "tax on
impunity."
The Human Rights Watch report says fully implementing the rulings is vital to combat abuses in the volatile North Caucasus.
"Every
crime that goes unpunished," it says, "sends a clear signal to others
that they can get away with equally horrific abuses."
Residents
of Russia have little faith in their country's court system and are
turning to the Strasbourg court en masse. They have filed some 46,000
complaints with the court since 1998 and now account for one-fifth of
all new complaints, many of them from Chechnya.
Rights groups
accuse Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov of using violence
to tighten his grip on Chechnya, where Moscow has fought two wars
against separatist rebels in the past 15 years.
String Of Bombings, Attacks
The republic has been hit by a string of suicide bombings and attacks on human rights activists and security forces.
In July, prominent rights campaigner Natalya Estemirova was murdered after being kidnapped from her home in the Chechen capital, Grozny.
Less
than a month later, Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik
Dzhabrailov, who ran a local children's charity, Save the Generation, were found dead in the trunk of a car in Grozny.
Both murders drew international outrage.
The
violence, together with Russia's reluctance to honor its commitments to
the European Court, has led to calls for action against Russia at the
Council of Europe.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe on September 28 voted to hold a debate on the threats to human
rights campaigners in the North Caucasus and on growing violence in the
region.
Such talks, however, may change little about Moscow's attitude toward Caucasus violence and the role of the European Court.
"The
main problem is the investigation of cases," says Karinna Moskalenko, a
lawyer who has helped many Russian citizens file complaints with the
Strasbourg court.
"Russian authorities almost never admit
responsibility, and failing to fully acknowledge violations means
resisting the implementation of rulings. When a country belonging to a
club of nations refuses to respect its rules, collaboration with this
member becomes impossible."
Thirty-Three Cases
The
New York-based watchdog, in a statement released this week, said the
court, based in the French city of Strasbourg, has so far delivered 115
rulings on Chechnya. The group closely studied 33 of them for its
report.
The cases relate to violations during Russian federal military operations to combat Chechen separatists between 1999 and 2004.
Allison
Gill, the head of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office, says the study
found that Russian officials consistently failed to bring perpetrators
to justice -- even when these were directly named in court judgments.
"In
almost every case, the court ruled that the Russian government was
responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, and forced
disappearances," Gill says. "And in almost every case, the court also
found the government guilty of failing to carry out an adequate
investigation. In the cases we've studied, the court rulings have not
led to a single prosecution."
Worse still, the reports notes, several Russian army officers found guilty by the Strasbourg court have since been promoted.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Rights_Group_Says_Russia_Snubbing_European_Court_On_Chechnya_/1839950.html
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