|
MINISTERS’ DEPUTIES |
Notes on the Agenda |
CM/Notes/1483/H46-A3 |
7 December 2023 |
|
1483rd meeting, 5-7 December 2023 (DH) Human rights
Item A3: Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation: measures required in the pending cases Supervision of the execution of the European Court’s judgments |
It is recalled that at its 1436th,1451st and 1475th DH meetings in June 2022, December 2022, and September 2023, respectively, the Committee discussed the strategy to be adopted for the examination of Russian cases, based on information documents[1] prepared by the Department for Execution of Judgments (DEJ), and adopted three decisions in this regard.[2]
Bearing in mind that the Russian authorities have stopped all communication with the Council of Europe, in its past meetings the Committee has also considered it useful to keep the United Nations monitoring bodies closely informed about its decisions, since Russia is still a member of the UN and subject to a number of UN monitoring procedures.
Since the September DH meeting, a number of steps have been taken to implement the strategy.
Firstly, in pursuit of closer cooperation with the UN bodies, the DEJ has continued its dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation. In her report adopted at the 54th HRC meeting, the Special Rapporteur included a recommendation about the execution of judgments concerning the Russian Federation.
Furthermore, on 13 November 2023, at its 44th session, the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) reviewed the situation in the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation participated, with a delegation chaired by the Deputy Minister of Justice in this meeting. During the interactive dialogue, several Council of Europe Member States took the floor and reminded the Russian Federation of its unconditional obligation to abide by the judgments and decisions of the European Court. In reply, the Russian authorities stated that they do not recognise the Strasbourg Court’s judgments that became final after 15 March 2022 and that they have adopted a specific law to that effect. They also stated that they continued to pay just satisfaction awards until January 2023 for judgments that became final before March 2022 (according to the information provided over 900 applicants have been paid over 100,000,000 euros). However as of 1 January 2023 the authorities stopped making payments as their power to do this has now expired based on domestic law.
Building on these developments, the Committee has invited the Special Rapporteur to Strasbourg for an exchange of views on 13 December 2023[3].
DEJ has also taken some further steps to facilitate the supervision of Russian cases, as instructed by the Committee. In this connection, the Committee’s decision to transfer all pending cases to the enhanced supervision procedure has been effected. Also, there is now a separate enhanced table for Russian cases (see DH-DD(2023)1406).
Furthermore, DEJ has carried out a stock-taking of all pending cases, and prepared a memorandum (H/EXEC(2023)12), setting out all necessary measures that should be taken by the authorities in all leading cases, reflecting all the previous decisions of the Committee. This H/Exec document will be public and its updated version with the new cases will be submitted for the consideration of the Committee at the end of each year. This new table could also be a useful tool in the cooperation with the UN.
Based on the information included, the Committee might wish to adopt a decision, reiterating the Russian authorities’ continued obligation to take measures to remedy the shortcomings listed in this document.
|
Financing assured: YES |