President Vladimir Putin signed a law which allows the Russian Constitutional Court to declare decisions of global courts unenforceable if they contradict the Russian constitution. The bill was drafted in response to a decision by the Constitutional Court in July stating judgements of the ECHR would not be implemented if they contradicted Russia’s constitution. One such case was in 2014 when the ECHR ruled that Russian Federation must pay $2.09 billion to shareholders of the now nonfunctional Yukos oil company. The legislation follows a $2 billion judgment by the European Court of Human Rights. In particular, the Russian president and government are vested with the competence of filing such requests with the Constitutional Court.
Advertisement
It is reported that the ECHR ruling resulted in 93 members of the Russian State Duma petitioning to the Russian Constitutional Court in objection to the 2014 diktat: the Moscow officials supposedly raised the issue of the ECHR directives not complying with Russian constitutional law, thereby raising questions regarding the validity of the ECHR judgment.
Moscow asserts that the Russian Constitution is to be accorded primacy in all cases where there is a clash between the Russian law and rulings coming out of Strasbourg.
According to Human Rights Watch, the new bill “could have wide spread consequence” after the ECHR handed down a ruling which found Russia’s surveillance regulations lacked sufficient safeguards against abuse.
In late 2013, the Russian Constitutional Court ruled that it had the right, but not an obligation to decide on the execution of contradictory ECHR decisions in Russia.
Bowring, who has litigated on behalf of Russian plaintiffs before the Strasbourg court, said the potential fallout from the law is “all very hypothetical at the moment”.
“I don’t see any problem there”, Zorkin said according to Reuters.
Advertisement
“It’s a voluntary thing, of course, and any country could denounce the treaty and leave”, he said.
