The European Court of Human Rights is systematically refusing to hear cases brought by Russians
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dismissed 879 applications filed by Russians regarding violations that occurred prior to September 16, 2022. Cases related to armed conflicts involving Russia are an exception.
The court’s decision notes that some of the rejected applications may potentially be well-founded. At the same time, the ECHR determined that they do not address issues of sufficient significance to establish Russia’s liability. Furthermore, these cases do not comply with the procedure currently applied to recurring violations.
Lawyer Maxim Olenichev disagreed with the court’s position. He believes that the rejected applications raise important human rights issues.
“I believe this is a serious mistake—both legally and in terms of reputation. For example, the ECHR struck from the docket the complaint filed by Lev Shlosberg, who was stripped of his deputy’s mandate by the Pskov Regional Legislative Assembly in 2015. The court refused to hear cases regarding the denial of access to information from the FSB archives about extrajudicial repression during the Soviet era, as well as Thomas Nielsen’s case concerning an unfounded ban on entry into Russia on grounds of ‘national security.’ “These cases raise important issues in the context of modern Russia.”
The applicants had been waiting for their cases to be heard for years. The oldest application among those rejected was filed as far back as September 2007.
At the same time, the ECHR reserved the right to reopen any of these cases if it determines in the future that there are sufficient grounds to do so.
“For Russians, the ECHR has always been the last hope for justice, and today that faint hope has finally collapsed,” commented the “Team Against Torture” on the court’s decision. “With its unprecedented decision, the court has denied more than a thousand people access to international justice, thereby failing to uphold human rights principles and acting in a discriminatory manner.”
This was reported by the European Court of Human Rights.
The ECHR will hear a case regarding the disappearance of Ukrainian children following the occupation of Crimea.
Earlier, the European Court of Human Rights officially began reviewing two complaints filed by Ukrainian investigative journalist and political prisoner Iryna Danilovych against the Russian Federation. The court has already forwarded the applications for communication and invited the Russian government to submit its observations on the admissibility and merits of the cases.
An investigation by the “Crimea.Realities” project has documented nearly 2,000 confirmed obituaries of Russian soldiers from occupied Crimea who died in the war against Ukraine. The heaviest losses are in Sevastopol, and the proportion of prisoners of war conscripted into combat operations is rising among the dead.
