Enlightened Europe has been vigorously displaying its fabled values lately.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) just recently responded in the complaint brought by the Russian Federation against Ukraine for the mistreatment of the latter’s citizens based on their ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic self-identification. To quote more directly the topics covered in the complaint: “The case concerns the Russian Government’s allegation of an administrative practice in Ukraine of, among other things, killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote, restrictions on the use of the Russian language and attacks on Russian embassies and consulates. They also complain about the water supply to Crimea at the Northern Crimean Canal being switched off and allege that Ukraine was responsible for the deaths of those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 because it failed to close its airspace.”

By any measure, these are serious complaints. Such violations, if true, go to the very core of the European and, more broadly, Western system of values. By those enlightened standards, there is no misconduct much worse than “killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote, restrictions on the use of … language.” Countries are put under sanctions and threatened with the use of force under the “right to protect” doctrine contrived for the benefit of victim populations for far less than that. (Cases in point: Belarus, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and the list could go on.) The Russian Federation, while alleging cited misbehaviour, neither imposed sanctions on the Ukraine nor threatened to march in and restore some semblance of legal order and security by unilateral, self-righteous intervention. Instead, it is seeking a judicial review of the facts and asking for a legal ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, a seemingly restrained and reasonable course of action. Pending a full consideration of the evidence in the case, it asked for an interim ruling, or what is called a restraining order in America, to caution the Ukrainian authorities from tolerating the cited misconduct should it in the meantime become aware of it. A more sensible request under the circumstances is difficult to imagine.

That is why under the circumstances ECHR’s response to the request for an interim ruling is puzzling, to put it mildly:

“The Court decided to reject the request under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court since it did not involve a serious risk of irreparable harm of a core right under the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Are we to understand that in a stable, law-based political system such as the Ukraine, no ideological extremists endangering the peace and security of citizens have been detected, and that the occurrence of killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote and other infractions of the European Convention, such as the burning alive of several dozen people in Odessa a few years ago, are but  wild and unsubstantiated rumours, to which no extraordinary attention should be paid and thus no urgent ameliorative action is required? It would appear so, and also that, according to the preliminary judgment of ECHR, in the Ukraine all core rights are prima facie safe and secure, and mercifully are under no threat of “irreparable harm.”

But in its July 13, 2021, ruling entitled “Russia failed to justify the lack of any opportunity for same-sex couples to have their relationship formally acknowledged,” the same European court sent an eloquent virtue signal of its actual vision of “core values”. In a ruling obligating Russia to disregard its legislation and to defer instead to the demands of the LGBT agenda, and by vivid contrast to its stance on paltry matters such as “killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote” and the like, ECHR ordered Russia to institutionalise same-sex marriages. It thus indicated clearly which are the issues that do trigger an immediate and energetic response of human rights watchdogs in the civilised countries.

To put these matters in a broader perspective, mention should be made of Mrs. Dragica Gašić and her ghastly predicament in the town of Djakovica, located in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, occupied by NATO since 1999 as a showcase of what R2P interventions can do in furtherance of the “core values” to which the European Court of Human Rights is presumably committed.

Serbian Kosovo returnee, Dragica Gašić

NATO, it should be recalled, is supposed to be the muscle behind those superior values, while ECHR’s task is to maintain the moral high ground by taking upon itself their theoretical articulation. Mrs. Gašić was one of several hundred thousand ethnically cleansed residents of Kosovo who, in 1999, judged it prudent to flee before NATO’s “liberation forces” and the local armed gangs allied with them, and to take temporary refuge in the remaining unoccupied, you might say Vichy, Serbia. After repeated assurances of “normalisation” in Kosovo (an expression rich in ironic undertones within the context of 1950s and 1960s East European history), Mrs. Gašić succumbed to the temptation of taking the Pied Pipers up on their promises. Several months ago, she decided to move back to her abandoned home in Djakovica in order to continue the life that was brusquely interrupted by the humanitarian intervention of two decades ago.

Arguably, that may have been one of the worst decisions she ever made. Although she now is the only person of her ethnicity living in the town to which she has returned, her presence apparently is an intolerable irritant to the community of her neighbours, who are rather openly favoured by NATO, NATO-friendly local authorities, as well as the majority of European chancelleries. Although this lone woman poses no visible political or security threat to anyone, she has been intimidated and in no uncertain terms made to feel unwanted and socially unintegrated (in strikingly similar fashion to the ultimately successful Russian same-sex applicants to ECHR, but with the distinction that in her case there is not the slightest recognition of her plight from any quarter). Her modest application recently to the authorities to allow her to install a steel door in her apartment for personal protection was denied since, apparently inspired by the legal teaching of the European Court of Human Rights in the Ukrainian case, they failed to see any “serious risk of irreparable harm of a core right”. On July 29, in her absence the apartment was burglarised, her personal belongings were ransacked and partially carried away, including the mourning outfit for her deceased father and her diabetes medications.

Mrs. Gašić was not so lucky as to be made a subject of international litigation initiated by any government, not even her own. Nor is she even on the radar screen of any of the numerous international “core right” watchdogs and rapporteurs swarming in Kosovo. But that is scarcely surprising.

To the less favoured races, European justice has few benefits to offer.

The problem for Ukraine is that the ECHR understands this is a political process. At the same time, Russia has fought to maintain membership as much as the Council of Europe has pushed for Russia to be a member in recent times, but Russia is likely to exit if the ECHR makes the kind of irresponsible ruling that Ukraine seeks.

On the balance, this places Ukraine’s claims in danger of being rejected outright, de-legitimizing their claim, and perhaps even creating the de facto precedent that an international body with standing among the parties, such as is the ECHR, treated the Russian control of Crimea as a legal (or, perhaps, ‘not illegal’) phenomenon.

But Ukraine’s aggressive moves, its poor evidence coming from previously debunked and openly Atlantic Council backed vectors, in combination with the fragile international relations involved, stands to backfire massively for the beleaguered Ukraine. The way Ukraine has constructed their case, the human rights claims are unnecessarily tied to the overarching framework of an alleged illegal annexation of Crimea on the part of Russia.

US interference in the ECHR Process will not be smiled upon

That Atlanticists in Ukraine and the US/UK are pushing this case is clear. For example, Russia’s representative to the ECHR, Deputy Justice Minister Mikhail Galperin, who has been dealing with Russia’s response to Ukraine’s suit, was put into the Myrotvorets database by Ukraine after recent court hearings.

The Myrotvorets database is a US created ‘independent’ website which lists ‘enemies’ of Ukraine. Since its creation, it has come under the de facto control of Ukrainian and US intelligence agencies, but technically is operated at arm’s length from any official structure.

Does this tell us about the attempt to politicize the whole process, interfering in Ukraine? Can this be considered as US foreign pressure on the ECHR itself?

Absolutely it can, but of course Galperin’s addition to the Myrotvorets database won’t have any effect of influencing anyone in the ECHR.  No one believes that Myrotvorets informal black-list lends any credibility to Ukraine’s case.

Just as odd as the Myrotvorets stunt is that the case involves evidence produced by Bellingcat, which does not have any official standing before international bodies, and they have been previously shown to have manufactured evidence, and their evidence could be rejected on that basis. Russia would certainly claim that Bellingcat either manufactured evidence intentionally, or that their patterns of errors in the past makes this evidence too compromised to use in a legal proceeding.

Still the games being played with Myrotvorets and Bellingcat are very clear indications that this process is being initiated and reinforced by the so-called ‘deep-state’ in the US.

So it is clear that the US has its hand in this, to simplify the dynamics and without digging further into any theory about whether Zelensky and Trump, for their part, approve of this. It’s likely the court will frown on these obvious Atlanticist moves and interference.

This all begs the question:

What reaction may we expect from the ECHR?

The ECHR is being asked to make a determination outside of the scope of the initially presented case and its facts. To begin with the claim that the Russian ‘occupation’ of Crimea has resulted in the violation of the Human Rights of, for example, Tatars and protected minorities, assumes that Russia has annexed Crimea, or that its present control is illegal.

So this brings to issue many strange twists, because there is such a thing as a legal occupation: even if it were established that the referendum process was flawed, and that Russia used military or intelligence power to gain control of the Crimea, this doesn’t, on the face of it, require that Russia’s control is illegal. That splits the question three or more ways, and not just two. Russia wants to avoid any finding that says – or is inferentially based on – either that Crimea is under occupation, legally or illegally.

In consulting experts on international law and sovereignty, in the precedence established in past rulings from the ECHR, we received some interesting opinions from the Center for Syncretic Studies’ legal council, Marija Katic, who follows matters of international law closely.

In her view, Ukraine presented its case such that the court was placed in the position of asking in pre-trial hearings whether the parties want it to rule on whether Russia is an illegal occupying power. Both parties agree that Russia has control over Crimea, but Ukraine also wanted the court to rule on the legality of such control. Russia does not want the court to rule on this, or create a ruling that infers that its control is either illegal or founded on the basis of military occupation.

This may have a backlash against Ukraine. It would be more reasonable for the rights of the people concerned, to file as Russian citizens. The process so far has the claimants as Ukrainians under occupation – Russia claims these are Russian citizens (and not foreign citizens under occupation). This raises serious questions of admissibility for the ECHR to move on this in a way that Ukraine might want.

This is where the nominal case presented – human rights – exceeds the expected questions the court sought to weigh on when looking at the viability of the case in the first place.

The aim of the court in general, because matters of both creating and acting upon precedent are involved, would be to generally defer to the narrowest possible application of its authority, involving themselves in the narrowest possible creation of future precedence.

From what we understand, the court may – sooner than later – respond to Ukraine that while it can be involved in pursuing the process for a ruling given that the citizens in question maintain and affirm their Ukrainian citizenship, it is not necessary to determine if Russia is illegally in control of Crimea.

The court can proceed on this without needing to rule on the legality of Russia’s control, nor does it help the Council of Europe maintain the membership of the Russian Federation – something which the Council of Europe affirmed the importance of last June in its vote then.

What were Ukraine’s real aims?

It would seem that what Ukraine really wanted was a ruling in its favor on the legality of control, which would compel Russia to quit the Council of Europe itself – a nominal Atlanticist victory, not whether human rights were actually violated. Then the nominal case of human rights would be through that lens, one which is much more geopolitical than it needs to be otherwise. If the court had to either weigh in on whether Russia’s control of Crimea was illegal, or if it made a ruling using a framework where this much is inferred, it would not bode well for Russia-EU relations which are in fact nearing a realized rapprochement.

What Ukraine is really after, besides a case which symbolically used the premise that Russia illegally occupied Crimea, is in fact a referendum on Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe.

Those individual citizens claiming persecution for their activism to see Crimea return to Ukraine would even perhaps have a better chance at getting a favorable ruling if Russia is seen as legitimately being in control of Crimea. Setting aside the issue of admissibility of the claims against Russia, if Russia’s administration is viewed either neutrally or as legitimate, then the claimaints would have to make a case that their rights were violated under Russia’s constitution and not under international law regarding the rights of people living under occupation. And then, in turn, the question of admissibility itself arises.

Questions of human rights of people under an occupation may be more able to be resolved within international bodies, under the ECHR and with reference to Geneva, whereas if the question is addressed in a way which presumes no wrong-doing regarding Russia’s control of Crimea, then we would probably presume a finding or judgment – if one is even made – based on whether Russia has treated these citizens on an equal basis, as compared to other dissidents in the Russian Federation.

So at issue, if the issue was taken up (admissibility aside), is not whether dissidents are being treated justly by Russia under the rules of occupation, but whether Russia is being just in its internal application of its own laws. And still, this is not something the court is likely to want to take up as a matter of jurisdiction itself, because the ECHR is a human rights court, and not an international law court. There are other courts and processes for that, and it’s likely the court will be compelled to see that problem.

The contradiction in Ukraine’s case

While occupied people have a right to resist, the occupying force must also reasonably see through its obligation to the basic rights to livelihood of people under occupation who are not engaged in resistance – which do not include the same level of democratic rights or equal treatment as such. However, if Russia is not an occupying power, again, then there may be a much lessened basis for admissibility in the first place.

The claims surrounding the national oppression of Crimean Tatars, meanwhile, is a difficult claim for Ukraine to make for other reasons, given that Russia’s de facto control over Crimea has not been administered as a military authority under norms of war or occupation, but rather seeing all Crimeans including Tatars as Russian citizens, where Russia’s constitutional processes consistent throughout the rest of the Russian Federation are being observed in Crimea. Here, Tatars are indeed recognized as a protected minority by the Russian Federation, and Russia would have a strong case that the rights of Tatars under Russian control are enhanced and not decreased as a consequence.

Conclusion

Altogether, because Europe is moving in a conciliatory direction with Russia, we might expect the ECHR to direct the claimaints to refile on a different basis if such a procedure exists, or we should expect that the ECHR will be forced to not directly answer the question of the legality of the Russian control of Crimea, and therefore defer to a position of the least wrong-doing on the part of Russia. That is, while not making a finding on that question, they certainly would not want to treat the claimaints as if they are under occupation, de facto making their ruling based upon the presumption of legitimate Russian control of Crimea.

But because this is a human rights court and not an international law court as such, if the court does not view Russia’s control of Crimea as either an occupation or illegal, then the case changes entirely, and might be rejected outright.

The court will likely realize that this is a back-handed referendum on Russia’s Council of Europe membership, and wouldn’t do anything to cut against the vote last summer affirming Russia’s importance in the Council – the organ that ties it to the ECHR in the first place.

Russia for its part would probably be satisfied with any ruling based on the presumption that its control was legal, and the issue of human rights being violated or not is not an indictment on Russia on the whole, but rather of the particular authorities of law enforcement in Crimea at the most local level – Russia would then happily be in the position to compensate the victims on the basis of a de facto legitimate Russian control of Crimea.

Leaving aside Britain’s past, most particularly that of empire, the country is not just continually moving towards authoritarianism it is beginning to demonstrate all the early signs of a rogue state. These are strong words but the actual definition of a rogue state is –  “a nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” Examples such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, Syria and latterly Libya are very clear. Irrespective of the technicalities, they all broke the rules of International laws or norms. But other examples demonstrate how lawless Britain as a state really is.

Chagos

Here, an entire population were forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people were dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and then demolished. To achieve this, Britain maliciously threatened the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of its Independence.

Recently, the International Court of Justice found that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1. Britain rejected this ruling.

Ex British ambassador Craig Murray wrote – “this represents a serious escalation in the UK’s rejection of multilateralism and international law and a move towards joining the US model of exceptionalism, standing outside the rule of international law. As such, it is arguably the most significant foreign policy development for generations. In the Iraq war, while Britain launched war without UN Security Council authority, it did so on a tenuous argument that it had Security Council authority from earlier resolutions. The UK was therefore not outright rejecting the international system. On Chagos it is now simply denying the authority of the International Court of Justice; this is utterly unprecedented.”

Weapons and war crimes

Britain’s arms and munitions sales are now regularly in the news. Even The Lords international relations committee said that British weapons were “highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties” in various countries where illegal wars, acts of genocide and war crimes are being committed. A quick online search lists numerous examples.

Israel

Then there is Britain’s relationship with Israel, which is taking a battering due to internal politics and finger-pointing over claims of racism. Fundamentally though, the issue is about war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people. British arms sales to Israel is at best questionable, especially the news that British made sniper rifles were used to kill and injure thousands of Palestinians recently. But Britain’s support in this genocidal war again goes against all international norms where the conflict is described by Amnesty International as an “abhorrent violation of international laws.” It added that – “This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be wilful killings constituting war crimes.”

In addition, UK policy is allowing trade with ‘Israeli’ goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The British government has stated that it does not even keep a record of imports into the UK from these illegal Israeli settlements. Acquiescing in this illegal trade by an occupying power is a violation of international law. The December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution, to which the UK agreed:

‘reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.

Libya

Mark Curtis, a British foreign policy expert and historian writes about Britain’s illegal attack of a soverign state – Libya: “British bombing in Libya, which began in March 2011, was a violation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorised member states to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to use ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent attacks on civilians but did not authorise the use of ground troops or regime change promoted by the Cameron government. That these policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself, who told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution ‘explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means.” Today, Libya is a failed state and overrun by militant factions.

Extrajudicial assassinations and even a kill list

Reprieve’s report entitled Britain’s Kill List accused the Conservative government of extreme deception of parliament. Officially, Britain has never had a so-called ‘kill list’ but David Cameron had to admit to an extrajudicial assassinations programme in the Middle East, which we at TruePublica reported. All such killings break the most fundamental of international laws and norms as detailed HERE.

The Reprieve introductory paragraph reads -“On September 7th, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron came to Parliament and announced a “new departure” for Britain, a policy of killing individuals the Security Services and the military do not like, people placed on a list of individuals who the UK (acting along with the US and others) have identified and systematically plan to kill. The mere admission that there is a Kill List certainly should, indeed, have been a “departure” for a country that prides itself on decency. Unfortunately, it was not a “new departure” at all, as we had been doing it secretly for more than a decade.”

Statelessness

Britain has once again broken international norms. The goals of UNHCR’s stateless campaign, a Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014 – 2024 introduced a guiding framework comprised of 10 Actions to be undertaken by states. In the case of high-profile ‘ISIS Bride’ runaway from Bethnal Green to Baghuz, Shamima Begum, the UK disregarded Actions 4 and 9:

Action 4: Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds.

Action 9: Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions.

But Britain’s has its own laws. Section 40(2) of the 1981 British Nationality Act states the Home Secretary won’t make any individual rendered stateless as a result. Under this, the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship breaks UK law and international norms.

Political prisoner

Then, there is the persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, which is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington until his arrest by British police yesterday. By definition, Assange is the only political prisoner in western Europe.  A United Nations legal panel ruled that Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty” and that his detention was illegal.

Assange has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize every year since 2010. His really big crime was releasing film of an American helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists in Iraq. Britain is more than just complicit of it attack of fundamental and important press freedoms in arresting him.

Assange’s lawyer criticised the British government for being poised to arrest and extradite Assange to the United States. “That a government would cooperate with another state to extradite a publisher for publishing truthful information outside its territory sets a dangerous precedent here in the UK and elsewhere,” she said. “No one can deny that risk. That is why he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.”

Surveillance

The UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes saw the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that state surveillance practices such as those practised in Britain violated human rights law. United National Special Rapporteur on Privacy Joe Cannataci said Britain was setting a bad example to the world and that Britain’s surveillance techniques on its own citizens was – “worse than Orwell’s 1984.” The highest courts in Britain have ruled against the government on mass surveillance.

In 2014, British spies were (illegally) granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to documents. The documents were made public as a result of a legal case brought against the British government by Libyan families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture, where Britain was proven to be in violation of international laws, in a joint British-American operation that took place in 2004.

A lawyer, in this case, said – “It could mean, amazingly, that the government uses the information they have got from snooping on you, against you, in a case you have brought. This clearly violates an age-old principle of English law set down in the 16th century – that the correspondence between a person and their lawyer is confidential.”

In addition, just one of the many operations carried out by the British state was called Optic Nerve. It illegally went about capturing images from webcams of millions of completely innocent citizens accused of nothing. Between 3% and 11% of the images captured by the webcams were sexually explicit in nature and deemed “undesirable nudity.” The public has not been reassured that these files still exist or not that were taken to build an illegal facial recognition system the government had not declared.

Surveillance operations such as – Muscular, Socialist, Gemalto, Three Smurfs, XKeyScore, Upstream and Tempora are all examples of extreme surveillance systems being used in Britain that would be completely unknown if it had not been for Edward Snowden – another political prisoner. All such operations would be deemed illegal in court and of breaking international laws or norms in normal democratic countries.

Health and Safety

In 2015, the Government pushed through a law that exempted a large number of self-employed people from the protection of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The Government managed to get away with reducing the level of protection because the self-employed are not covered by the European “Framework Directive”, which is the regulation that sets minimum standards that countries have to comply with.

At the time the TUC pointed out to the Government that there were other international laws that the UK had signed up to in many other non European countries that did cover the self-employed including those of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe.

Disability

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities examined the British government’s progress in fulfilling its commitments to the UN convention on disabled people’s rights, to which the UK has been a signatory since 2007.

Its report concludes that the UK has not done enough to ensure the convention, which enshrines the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and to enjoy social protection without discrimination – is reflected in UK law and policy.

Although it praises some initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh governments to promote inclusion, it is scathing of the UK government’s inconsistent and patchy approach to protecting disability rights and its failure to audit the impact of its austerity policies on disabled people.

Trust

Breaking international laws and norms has a long-term effect, mainly that of detriment to national security, long-term interests and trust. There is an assumption, of course, that international law cannot be enforced but in today’s world, international sanctions can be as damaging as using force. Those sanctions could be economic or diplomatic in nature. And if Britain wants to be an international player, it very strongly needs to appreciate and adhere to international laws and norms.

truepublica.org.uk

The Russian Federation (Russian Federation) joined the Council of Europe (CE) in 1996 and ratified the ECHR in 1998. The ECHR established the European Court of Human Rights in 1959. These mechanisms to protect human rights are binding on all 47 CE member states.

After Crimea became part of Russia in 2014, Russia’s voting rights in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) were suspended. Moscow responded in 2017 by reducing its payments to that organization by one-third, a decision that will not be reversed until its delegation has its voting rights back. Russia is one of the largest donors to the CE with an annual membership fee amounting to €33 million ($37.5 million), or about 7% of the Council’s overall budget.

In 2016, the PACE was not invited to monitor Russia’s parliamentary elections. Obviously this was a sign of a deteriorating relationship. In late 2017, the RF warned it could withdraw from the PACE altogether if its right to vote was not restored. More than 20 ECHR judges have been elected without Russia’s input. Why should the RF respect their rulings? Top CE officials are also elected without Moscow’s vote. Why should it trust them? Is it legitimate to hold such elections without Russia? Certainly not. Then why should the RF comply with rules that were established without its input or with court verdicts that are obviously politicized? And why should it pay? Would anyone buy a movie ticket knowing in advance that he would never see the film? So many questions! And the answers are all “no.”

In 2015 the RF adopted a law asserting its right to ignore rulings from the ECHR if those conflict with Russian law. It’s an open secret that the RF is deeply disappointed with the institutions of the CE: the PACE and the ECHR. The PACE’s anti-Russian tilt is obvious. Anyone who observes the organization’s activities will remember how Pedro Agramunt, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly,  was stripped of his powers and forced to resign last year. This happened after he joined Russian lawmakers on a trip to Syria, which included a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The CE has openly interfered in the RF’s internal affairs by insisting on the right of Aleksei Navalny, an opposition politician, to take part in the 2018 presidential election. Navalny is not allowed to run because anyone with a criminal conviction is barred from seeking elected office in Russia.

In 2017, the Court ruled that the ban on “gay propaganda” is illegal, because it breaches Article 10 of the ECHR, which protects the right to freedom of expression and information. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Does this mean that Russia has no right to protect its children from pride marches, promiscuous propaganda, and indecent behavior? If that’s not flagrant meddling into internal affairs, then what is?

The institutions of the CE could and should be reformed to guarantee that everyone is equal and the organization is not biased. No PACE member should be denied voting rights and no resolutions should be adopted with only a minority of votes. Finger pointing should be abandoned. That is not what the PACE was created for. Its mission is to serve as a platform for exchanging views and ideas.

And the Court should stop being used as a tool of the CE for propaganda and political purposes. The Court should provide its independent opinion, but without any further binding rulings. National law should prevail.

Russia refuses to contribute to this organization in which it has no voice and rightly so. Remember “No taxation without representation”? No doubt Americans are sympathetic toward Russia’s stance.

If the RF pulls out from the ECHR and the ECHR, it will also terminate its membership in the CE. The Council represents approximately 820 million people. The population of the RF, a country rich in resources, with a huge military and economy, exceeds 144 million. Without Russia the CE would no longer qualify as a truly pan-European institution. The RF is large enough that the idea of European discourse without Moscow is meaningless.

As a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Moscow does not need the podium of the PACE to make its views known. But will the CE enjoy the same clout without Russia? The RF can easily do without the Council, but the organization’s clout will diminish. It’s time for CE leaders to reconsider their organization’s mission.

In April 2014, the Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of key rights, including the right to vote and take part in the assembly’s governing bodies, following the developments in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia. The restrictions were prolonged and are still in place.

In September, Secretary General Thorbjørn warned that Russia may be “forced to leave” the Council of Europe. According to him, a new law in Russia that would allow the Constitutional Court to overrule the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is part of a “worrying trend.” For instance, the judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of January 19, 2017, stipulates that Russia is not obliged to (and may not) implement the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) of July 31, 2014 on the Yukos case. The European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled that Russia’s so-called gay propaganda law reinforces “stigma and prejudice” and violates the right to freedom of expression. The ruling deprives Russia of its legitimate right to protect traditional family values.

In June, the Russian Federation decided to suspend payment of its contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe for 2017 (one-third of Russia’s 2017 fee) until full and unconditional restoration of the credentials of the delegation. Russia is currently one of the largest donors to the Council of Europe’s budget along with France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and more recently, Turkey. Its annual membership fee amounts to €33 million ($37.5 million), or about 7 percent of the organization’s overall budget. Two-thirds of this sum had already been transferred to the CE’s accounts, meaning suspended sum totals €11 million ($13 million). No future payments will be made until the rights of the Russian delegation to the PACE are fully restored. The Council of Europe loses "very large amount" because of Russia's decision to suspend the payment of part of the contribution to the budget of the organization for 2017, said the PACE Rapporteur on the activities of the Bureau of Ian Liddell Grainger. Acting President of the PACE Roger Gale called Moscow's decision an "unprecedented problem.

In 2016, Russia did not invite PACE monitors to its parliamentary elections as a sign of aggravating relationship.

It should be noted that the suspension of Russian parliamentarians from participation in the approval of the Council of Europe senior officials in PACE, including Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, Commissioner for Human Rights and Judges of European Court of Human Rights makes one question their legitimacy.

The organization runs a campaign to persecute those who wish to normalize interaction with Russia. This month, Pedro Agramunt, the leader of the parliamentary assembly, had to resign after being stripped of his powers. One of the reasons was his visit to Syria with Russian MPs in March, when he met President Bashar al-Assad. Assembly members will elect the next president to hold office until the term ends in January. The two proposed candidates are Stella Kyriakides of Cyprus and Emanuelis Zingeris of Lithuania. If Russia does not take part in the election, the legitimacy of the vote will be questioned.

In late September, the Council of Europe's decision-making body, the Committee of Ministers, called on Russian authorities to let opposition leader Aleksei Navalny "stand for election" for the Russian presidency. It was widely perceived as an act of interference into internal affairs. The Russian Justice Ministry responded to the committee's statement by accusing the Council of Europe of "stepping beyond" its authority and trying to "exert political pressure" on Russian authorities.

If Moscow leaves the Council of Europe, the organization would no longer be able to present itself as a pan-European institution. Russia is too big and important to be excluded from European discourse. Without the membership, it will still remain in Europe. Moscow does not need the PACE as a podium to make its views known; it has the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for that purpose.

No Russian official has made a statement that Moscow is going to leave the organization but the idea is in the air. The disappointment with the efficiency of the Council of Europe, the PACE and the ECHR is evident.

It’s time for the Council and its structures to be reformed. It would be right to change the PACE procedures. No delegation should be deprived of credentials or restricted in its rights. No resolutions should be approved by minority of votes. Today, it’s normal to adopt a resolution in the name of PACE when only 50-60 deputies take part in the voting. But the main thing is to change the approaches. There should be no scapegoats, no smear campaigns. The PACE should become what it once was – a platform for exchanging ideas and assessments, taking positions and initiatives, not propaganda efforts.

According to the established procedure, in January PACE national delegations have their mandates confirmed. The rules say that to resume the authority an official request for approval signed by the Chairman of the National Parliament must be sent to the President of the PACE at the beginning of the year. The time limit for submitting the request expired on January 15. The delegations from the UK, Lithuania, and Poland, Sweden and Estonia have supported the initiative to challenge the credentials of the Russian delegation on the grounds of alleged «failure» to carry out the previous resolutions of the Assembly and keep Russia deprived of voting rights at the upcoming PACE winter session to kick off on January 25 to last till January 29. Russian newspaper Izvestia (Jan.13 edition in Russian) confirmed the information about the initiative to resume the sanctions against the Russian delegation to PACE citing its sources in the Assembly Secretariat.

To start the proceedings, the anti-Russian initiative should be supported by at least 30 deputies from five states. The PACE Monitoring Committee is to prepare a relevant resolution to either confirm the credentials of the Russian delegation to PACE, or cancel them completely, or confirm with certain restrictions.

The sanctions against Russia were imposed by PACE in April 2014 due to the reunification of Russia with Crimea. According to the resolution, Russian deputies were denied the right to vote in PACE and the right to be represented in its governing bodies. At the end of January 2015 PACE adopted a resolution to prolong the restrictions. In response, the Russian delegation left the Assembly till 2016.

The head of Russian delegation Sergey Naryshkin has said on many occasions that Russia had no illusions about the restoration of its authority in 2016, and that the PACE’s approach was unacceptable.

First Deputy Chairman of state Duma Committee on international Affairs, member of the Russian delegation in PACE, Leonid Kalashnikov said, Russia is likely not to attend the organization’s winter session.

Chairman of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee Aleksey Pushkov warned that Russian delegation would not participate in the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe if there will be no prospects of a full-fledged participation.

Russia could refuse to pay the fee it sends to the Parliamentary Assembly, if the restrictions were in force. The fee – the total of about $40 million – to the Council of Europe is indivisible and it is an aggregated fee to PACE, the Committee of Ministers, the European Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and to the European Court of Human Rights.

The decision to keep Russia out of PACE proceedings is strange enough, to put it mildly. PACE has always prided itself on its democratic tradition. The deputies of the Assembly always emphasize that it's very important to hear what Russia has to say on hot issues and acute problems faced by the continent. At the very same time an initiative is launched to exclude Russia, a key security actor in Europe and one of the top five donors to the Council of Europe, from participation in the Europe’s most representative parliamentary forum that unites 47 member-nations.

Expressing his personal opinion, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland said some time ago that the time was right to deescalate the tensions, because the world has to deal with such serious problems as Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts and the refugee crisis.

He said that in his opinion, it is necessary to unite all the efforts to remove the wall separating the sides and try to find a solution together.

Now the ball is in PACE's court.

The inter-parliamentary dialogue plays a special role in promoting parliamentary involvement and cooperation at the time when Europe is hit by huge economic difficulties, seemingly unsurmountable refugee problem, and terrorist activity. The very survival of Europe, as we know it today, is questioned. The absence of Russia will bring to naught all the activities related to the key burning issues faced by the Old Continent today. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has shot itself in the foot.

It means that the Polish government now faces a substantial bill for damages and legal costs. It has to conduct full examination to make precise who among Polish officials was responsible for prisons functioning on Polish soil. 

July’s judgment said that two current Guantánamo inmates, Anbu Zubaydah and Abd-al-Rahim al-Nashiri were held in a CIA prison in Poland. They had been subject to torture (the both are in Guantanamo now). Poland failed in its duty under European human rights law to protect them or investigate what happened. The Polish government has already agreed to pay compensations to these persons. 

Poland does its best to conceal unsavory facts. In September 2014 human rights commissioner Nils Muižnieks called upon Poland to conduct full investigation without delay and publish the results making those who were guilty responsible even if they held top government positions. Polish prosecutors have been investigating the allegations about the CIA jail since March 2008. Zbigniew Siemiątkowski, the former Polish intelligence chief in 2002-2004, is charged with «abuse of office», "unlawfully depriving prisoners of their liberty" and «the use of physical force» against prisoners. 

According to Polish media, charges could be brought against Andrzej Derlatka, deputy chief of the intelligence service, responsible for the relations with the US, former Polish President Alexander Kvasnevsky and former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, the current leader of Democratic Left Alliance.

Leszek Miller has firmly affirmed many times there were no CIA jails in Poland ever. Now he says something different as the facts keep on piling up. According to him, he was not aware of the prison’s existence in Poland. Alexander Kvasnevsky says the same thing. 

Dick Marti, the head of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, says some Europeans knew about the existence of secret CIA jails at least since 2004. 

In early December 2014, Aleksander Kwasniewski acknowledged in an interview following the publication of the US Senate report that his country had let the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) run a secret prison. The prison was located in the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence base in northeastern Poland, 170 km from Warsaw. Prisoners suspected of involvement in terrorist activities were transported there to be interrogated with the use of tortures. CIA aircraft landed in Shimanah.

Kwasniewski continues to say the Polish government did not know about it. It’s hard to believe. Polish media has been reporting about the local branch of «American GULAG» for ten years. Even ultra-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza admitted the fact in December 2005. It wrote then that the main CIA secret jail in Europe was in Poland. 

In 2001 Andrzej Lepper, a former Polish deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Yaroslav Kachinsky (2006-2007) and the leader of the small, populist Self-Defense Party, made accusations on alleged landing of a plane carrying some Taliban in a village called Klewki, not much distant from the CIA’s site in Stare Kiejkuty. Journalists asked him what he knew about the secret installations but he refused to elaborate being afraid for his life. In 2011 he was found dead in this office in the heart of Warsaw. The death took place under extremely strange circumstances. The investigation on secret jails has been dragging on for seven years. Perhaps this inefficiency is explained by the fact that there are too many top positioned persons involved. No wonder the investigators work is so slow. Lawyers have insisted to make the legal proceedings closed keeping media out. No matter that, leaks made the information on kidnappings and tortures public domain. It has been revealed that Poles actively cooperated in «enhanced interrogation techniques» to include harsh methods such as dehydration, temperature extremes mixed with threats of death, with a gun or electric drill kept at the prisoner’s head. 

According to the Washington Post, former agency officials directly involved in the program, such as Jose Rodriguez, the CIA’s former deputy director of operations, have said that the harsh techniques produced «dramatic positive results.»

American media reported that Mike Sealy, a senior intelligence officer, was assigned to run the Polish «black site». He was called a «program manager». Polish officials could visit a common area where lunch was served, but they didn’t have access to the detainees.

At present Poland is the only country where the secret jails investigation may end up in persecution of state’s former top officials. Unfortunately it’s not excluded that Americans would prefer Poland to follow the example of other European Union members where the CIA prisons related scandals were let slide to make public forget about it. In Poland the associates of those who may face responsibility try to paint the scandal as advantageous for the ruling cabinet as it is trying to deviate the public attention from burning social problems. 

The European Court of Human Rights today confirmed that the Polish government was complicit in the CIA’s secretive programme of rendition, detention and interrogation.

The Court in Strasbourg today rejected a challenge from the Polish government to a landmark ruling from last July, a decision which now makes that original judgement final.

July’s judgment said that two current Guantánamo inmates, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were held in a CIA prison in Poland, that they had been subject to torture, and that Poland failed in its duty under European human rights law to protect them or investigate what happened.

Poland had requested a referral to the Court’s grand chamber, effectively appealing the decision, which could not become final while the request was pending.

The grand chamber today refused the request, but did not give any reasons.

It means that the Polish government now faces a substantial bill for damages and legal costs.

In the July judgment, both men were awarded €100,000 in damages and Abu Zubaydah another €30,000 in legal costs.

However, Abu Zubaydah’s US lawyer confirmed to the Bureau that if the money was made available they would not claim the legal costs, and that Abu Zubaydah would be donating the full €100,000 in damages to victims of torture.

Poland is the first EU member state to be found guilty of complicity in the CIA’s secret detention programme and responsible for multiple violations of the detainees’ rights.

The case concerned the treatment of the two detainees, who were held by the CIA in Poland and subjected to torture, incommunicado detention and secret transfer to other CIA black sites.

Both men were secretly rendered to Poland on December 5 2002. Al-Nashiri was taken to Morocco on June 6 2003. Abu Zubaydah was transferred from Poland to a black site in Guantánamo Bay on September 22 2003.

Helen Duffy, European lawyer for Abu Zubaydah, told the Bureau the decision means that “Poland is required to finally conduct a thorough and effective investigation, make public information concerning its role and hold those responsible to account”.

She added: “This is an opportunity for Poland to reengage constructively, to address the crimes of the past and reassert its position as a supporter of the rule of law.”

The decision comes after the Senate intelligence committee published an executive summary of its investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme last December. Al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were among the 119 detainees named in that summary report.

The European Parliament last week voted to resume investigating the complicity of EU member states in the CIA programme, in the wake of the new information revealed by the Senate’s summary.

The new information included confirmation of previous suspicions that the CIA paid the Polish government to continue hosting the black site, after the government refused to accept the planned transfer of new detainees, who the summary said included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 2001 attacks on US cities.

Joe Marguiles, US lawyer for Abu Zubaydah, told the Bureau: “We are gratified but not surprised that the Court held to its prior judgment.  The evidence was overwhelming when the Court ruled the first time, and now it’s irrefutable.  The only question is whether Poland is sufficiently committed to the rule of law that it will conduct a meaningful investigation.  So far, the evidence on that score is not promising.”

The Polish government claimed when requesting referral to the grand chamber that the presence of a CIA black site in Poland was not proven, and that Polish officials were unaware of what happened within the confines of the alleged black site.

In its letter to the ECHR requesting a referral, which has been seen by the Bureau, the Polish government said: “It is not enough to make an overall negative assessment of the HVD [High Value Detainee] programme and to make the respondent state’s cooperation under this programme plausible.”

The Polish government had also questioned the court’s finding that Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were actually in Poland. In the letter, the government said that al-Nashiri’s allegations contained “unrebutted fact”, and that the body of evidence which suggested the two men were detained in Poland was “mostly circumstantial”.

Following the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into CIA rendition and “enhanced interrogation” techniques last December, former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski admitted that he had allowed the US to operate its black site in Poland, but claimed he did not know torture was being carried out there.

Related story: European Parliament to investigate CIA’s torture and rendition operations in EU

Abu Zubaydah was the first detainee of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme. He and al-Nashiri were two of around 17 so-called high value detainees.

Both al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were subjected to the torture technique known as waterboarding, with US government documents showing Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month.

Documents filed by Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers show he was transferred by the CIA on December 5 2002 to the village of Stare Kiejkuty in Poland from Thailand.

Abu Zubaydah is a stateless Palestinian who was born in Saudi Arabia. He was captured by the CIA from a house in Faisalbad, Pakistan, on March 28 2002 and held in detention by the CIA until September 2006, when he was transferred to US military custody at Guantanamo Bay.

Al-Nashiri is a citizen of Saudi Arabia. He has been charged with war crimes.

Abu Zubaydah also remains in indefinite detention in Guantánamo Bay and has never been charged with any crime, either before a military commission or in a civil court.

This report is part of a joint investigation with The Rendition Project and is being supported by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. To support the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s fundraising appeal for this investigation, please click here.

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Romanians are the second largest group in Bucovina (historically the region has been Russian, now the northern part of it belongs to Ukraine). 97% Romanians live in Chernovitsy (115 thousand) and Transcarpathia (32 thousand). According to CEMES (Centre for European Migration and Ethnic Studies), the main problems faced by the Romanian community are social development and their low representative proportion in higher education and in professional work. Numerous reports from Romanian-based sources raise concerns for the situation of the Romanian minority in Ukraine and specifically criticize the availability of educational opportunities in the Romanian language. The 2012 law «On the principles of the state language policy» was abolished as a result of the 2014 coup pouring even more fuel on the discontent among Ukrainian Romanians. Kiev refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing when reproached for its neglect of Romanian culture. This attitude makes the situation worse. In June 2014 the Bessarabia Romanians held a convention in Odessa with assistance of Romanian Cultural Institute (Romania). There were many voices raised calling for opening new Romanian cultural centers (there are too few of them and quite often the staff has no command of the language). The head of Odessa regional national-cultural association Bessarabia said that the main problem for the Romanian community in the Odessa region is the availability of schools teaching in Romanian language and their funding. 

In Kiev they keep on saying that minorities enjoy better legal protection than in Romania. It’s not true like many other things the Ukrainian propaganda says. Lipovans are Russian old believers who fled Russia in the late 17th early 18^th centuries in order to escape the persecution of their faith. The community holds symposiums devoted to its history and religion. It prints Zori newspaper in Bucharest and Kitej-Grad journal in Iași. Many old believers have Romanian decorations (writers Nikita Danilov and Leonte Ivanov, scholar Mihai Nistor and many others). The Romanian law guarantees the right of all ethnic minorities to have their own organizations, and preserve traditions and language. Their activities are supported by government. In 2003 a special seminar course on old Orthodox faith was held for the children of Russian old believers in the Saint Basil the Great seminary located in Iași. 

In Ukraine the number of schools teaching in Romanian language has dwindled from 18 down to 5 during the 23 years of the country’s independence. It was accompanied by the closure of many Russian schools.

It’s no better with the Hungarian minority. Just recently Kiev has changed the borders of single member constituencies in the areas densely populated by Hungarians living in Transcarpathia. Now the Hungarian votes are spread around the constituencies and the minority cannot elect its representatives to Verkhovna Rada (parliament). Hungarian activists referred to the national law №709 – VII «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning improvement of legislation on the elections» of November 21 and Article 18 (Election Districts) of Chapter III (Territorial Organization of Election of Members of Parliament) of the Law on Election of People’s Deputies which envisioned that the delimitation of single-mandate districts was to take into consideration the compact minority settlement, something Kiev ignores. The Hungarian Transnistria human rights foundation has lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights which calls on the Ukrainian government to comply with its own laws. 

No matter all the appeals, the plight of Hungarians governed by the «Ukrainian national state» keeps on becoming worse. In March 2013 Ukrainian radicals in Transnistria attacked Hungarian tourists, some accompanied by children. Then Ukrainian media reported that Pravy Sector (extremist far-right movement) decided to tackle the «Hungarian issue». A memorial at Verecke Pass devoted to Hungarian tribes that crossed the Carpathian Mountains to Danube was desecrated (an inscription appeared saying «Death to Hungarians»!). Hooligans beat up the participants of Beregovo (Transnistria) Hungarian community council. Hungarians were really excited over what happened. Karoy Bala, a Hungarian poet who lives in Transnistria, is well known among national intelligencia. He wrote an article called the Land of Boors devoted to the attitude of Ukrainian government towards his compatriots. 

Seals, note-papers and signs in two languages are not enough for the Hungarian minority anymore. These are just cosmetic measures that have nothing to do with preserving national culture in the places populated by Hungarians for thousands of years. Irredentist sentiments are on the rise among almost 200 thousand Hungarians living in Ukraine. 

In March 2007, Georgia filed a lawsuit against Russia in which Georgia alleged that Russia had violated a number of articles of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with regard to Georgian citizens. Georgia argued that Russia was pursuing a policy of discrimination with regard to ethnic Georgians and on political grounds was expelling them from the country en masse. 

So after seven years spent considering the case, the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR, made up of 17 judges (2), reached its decision. The court ruled that Russia had violated Article 38 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and that in the autumn of 2006, a coordinated policy of arresting, detaining and expelling Georgian nationals from the country was put in place in the Russian Federation. (3)

Georgia called for the Court to not only declare that the Convention had, indeed, been violated, but also award reparations and compensation. This request was rejected by a majority vote, however. The judges stated that both sides should initially discuss the issue themselves, and only in the event that they could not reach an agreement within a year would the ECtHR return to its consideration.

Five of the judges – from Spain, Britain, Bulgaria and Russia – stated their own separate or dissenting opinion. The dissenting opinion of Russian judge Dmitry Dedov deserves the most attention. He pointed out a number of serious flaws in the court’s reasoning, and added that such «mistakes» call into question the impartiality of the court!

In assessing the ECtHR ruling, one should pay attention to a number of important circumstances.

Firstly, the court found no violation of Articles 14 and 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibiting discrimination on any grounds and setting the limits of the possible restrictions of human rights), Article 8 of the Convention (the right to respect for private and family life), as well as Article 1 (protection of property) and Article 2 (right to education) of Protocol No.1 to the Convention. Nor did it find any violation of Article 1 of Protocol No.7 to the Convention. The court also did not find any evidence that Georgian citizens living in Russia legally had been expelled from the Russian Federation. Nor did it find any evidence of the expulsion of ethnic Georgians who are citizens of Russia or any infringement of their rights. 

Secondly, although the ECtHR did find that the Russian Federation had violated the provisions of a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights related to the mass expulsion of foreigners, it is important to look at how this was done.

This reveals something interesting. Any findings must be based on established facts. The establishment of facts is the primary responsibility of the court. So what did the European Court of Human rights do? It simply quoted the reports of «non-governmental human rights organisations». The content of these reports is amazing: the majority of them do not contain any names or any kind of concrete information. Thus the non-governmental organisations acting as public prosecutors against Russia were accepted by the court as witnesses. Also, their evidence was accepted without any kind of critical analysis whatsoever.

Another astonishing fact is the judges’ refusal to analyse the evidence submitted by Russia. In response to allegations that Russian courts had implemented the mass expulsion of Georgians, the Russian government submitted hundreds of court rulings, where the initial decisions on expulsions had been revoked on appeal. And what did the fairest court in Europe do? It simply ignored the evidence! It is not even mentioned in the court’s decision.

While on the subject of the European Court’s decision with all of its legal flaws, it is impossible not to mention the reaction of the Russian authorities. Typically, decisions by the European Court that declare Russia has violated some right or other receive harsh, objective criticism from Russia. This applies to a number of ECtHR decisions, including in the cases of Ilaşcu and Kononov. This time, however, Russia’s reaction proved to be quite different. First to react was the Russian Ministry of Justice, which made a special statement in which the whole court ruling was basically narrowed down to the fact that the ECtHR had not found that Russia had violated many of the articles mentioned by Georgia. Ninety percent of the Ministry’s statement was devoted to this non-discovery. With regard to the main part of the ECtHR’s decision, the Ministry of Justice said only that the violations identified by the European Court «concern only those actions related to the procedure of making deportation decisions and the conditions in which illegal migrants and people who have violated the rules of their stay in Russia as stipulated by Russian legislation are being kept at temporary centres.» (4)Those who have not read the text of the court’s decision may have the impression that the ECtHR, like a mountain, stood up to defend Russia from Georgia’s scheming. 

The Russian media virtually refused to comment on the court’s decision, referring to the fact that the Ministry of Justice had already done so. The deputy minister only commented on the circumstances of the Saakashvili regime’s complaint. Thus, responding to a question from RIA Novosti, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia said: «We must remember that the Georgian complaint was submitted to the ECHR in March 2007, when another anti-Russian hysteria campaign was ongoing: it was one of those that Mikhail Saakashvili frequently organised, methodically attempting to achieve his main goal – the disruption of the historical friendship between the two peoples. It was clear from the very beginning that by turning to the Court, the Tbilisi leaders at that time did not care about the establishment of truth or the re-establishment of allegedly usurped justice, but aimed to inflict the most possible political harm to Russia. This is where the unsubstantiated accusations that have nothing to do with reality come from. They were obviously rejected by the Court. Many important events have taken place while this complaint was being considered in Strasbourg. The anti-Russian campaign of Tbilisi reached its zenith in August 2008, when Russian peacekeepers were treacherously murdered and several hundred civilians died in South Ossetia. The criminal military mission by Mikhail Saakashvili had the most severe consequences for Georgia. During the elections of 2012-2013, the Georgian people were able to get rid of this leader, having supported forces, which, among other things, spoke in favour of the recovery of relations with Russia. I hope that the fate of the politicised anti-Russian complaint to the ECtHR, as well as all the events in recent years, will serve as a warning against the harmful attempts to disrupt good-neighbourliness between our two countries. At the same time, we would like to remind you about the historical failures of such attempts.» (5)

Such a restrained reaction to a clearly political, as well as legally skewed, ECtHR decision becomes clearer following the statements made by Georgian Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze. The Georgian minister said that whilst the European Court’s decision was «fair», «relations between Georgia and Russia should start with a clean slate». He noted that what had happened regarding the expulsion of Georgians from Russia was «very sad», but that it «belonged in the past».

In this regard, the question arises: rather than a peacemaker, did the European Court of Human Rights (represented by those governments whose judges drafted the verdict) not act more like an instigator of the intergovernmental problems encountered in relations between Russia and Georgia? One could say that the ECtHR is not a political body, and therefore should not get involved in peacekeeping, but rather «pure law». But this would be profoundly wrong, since the ECtHR has, at its disposal, a number of opportunities precisely for peacekeeping, including the right to settle a dispute peacefully, for example, which is explicitly specified in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. And the ECtHR has made extremely good use of this right in other cases. 

The court did not use its peacekeeping functions in this case, however, but quite deliberately poured oil on the fire. The intent can be seen from the legal flaws that are just too evident to be passed off as mistakes. And if there were no mistakes, then there was intent.

Russia and Georgia have shown that they are ready to throw off the problems of the past, taking advantage of all the benefits of settling disputes diplomatically (6), in comparison with the settlement of disputes through the use of a not entirely impartial international system of justice.