European Court of Human Rights and Russia

The European Court of Human Rights is a constantly operating body of the Council of Europe, established in 1959. Its task is to ensure that member-states respect the rights and guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. In contrast to traditional international judicial authorities the Court terms of reference cover applications of individuals. The European Court judgments have absolute force for States Parties and are obligatory for execution by all public authorities. But the Court is not a higher echelon in respect of national courts and cannot change or reverse their decisions. Over 50,000 new applications are lodged at the Court every year. More than half of applications lodged since establishing the Court refer to violation of Article 6 of the Convention (fair judicial proceedings in reasonable terms) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (the protection of property). Over the past few years the Court has developed a procedure of ''pilot judgments'' to cater for the massive influx of applications concerning similar issues. Russia joined the Council of Europe and signed the Convention and a number of Protocols to it on February 28, 1996. The case decision ''Burdov vs. Russia'' of May 7, 2002 became the first judgment against Russia. On January 15, 2009 the first "pilot judgment" about Russia was accepted on the same case (No. 33509/04). According to the Court statistics, Russia is the leader by the number of applications. A considerable part of them are identical. It is evidence of improper law execution concerning human rights violations. Russians apply mostly about non-execution of national court decisions (17%), next are applications about the low level of medical care, bad conditions of pre-trial detention and violation of the principle of competition in trials. Despite the fact that the number of judgments on Russian applications increases, some figures remain unfavorable: the growing number of applications is declared unacceptable; the execution of general measures concerning Russia is recognized as unsatisfactory; the statistics of time constraints of implementation of the Court judgments on "leading cases" is unfavorable. The practice of the Court on Russians' applications processing shows that violations of rights and freedoms are often a sequel of inadequate interpretation and adaptation of Russian laws. High percent of rejected applications suggests a weakness of informing the officials, judges, juridical community and citizens about the procedure of lodging and processing applications. It is significant that practice of the Court legal investigation indicates the gaps in legislation and problems of law-enforcement practice. It has positive impact on law-enforcement policy and legal proceedings that help to improve the law-enforcement system. Thus, the Court may be denoted as "the expert center", which provides necessary work for the law-enforcement system of the country, and reveals problems of legislation and legal proceedings.

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