Russia Webinar 3: Forming a collective strategy to advance implementation of ECtHR judgments in Russia  

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The last webinar in the Russia series took place on the 24th November 2020. It aimed to encourage discussion on collective strategies that can advance implementation in Russia, through forming implementation hubs, focused alliances to campaign on particular cases and holding the government to account for its implementation record.

The webinar began with a presentation by Artur Dzedzinskii, Lawyer of Russia Behind Bars, on the organisation’s activities to promote the implementation of ECtHR judgments against Russia concerning the rights of prisoners. This set out the mixture of litigation, media outreach and co-operation work being done to push forward implementation in this area.

The webinar then discussed implementation hubs, which can be an NGO or group of NGOs leading a sustained and concerted effort to push implementation forward. These hubs can spread information to other NGOs who might want to take action, make joint Strasbourg submissions and advocate at the national level. Hubs are functioning across the Council of Europe member states, by EIN members. For more information on implementation hubs, please see our blog post on Armenian civil society training.

Next, the webinar turned to alliances of NGOs operating to promote the implementation of particular judgments, highlighting the different case-based approaches and topic based-approaches human rights organizations can utilize. The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), the Association for Constitutionality and Legality (UZUZ) and ASTRA coalition on the missing babies’ case of Zorica Jovanović v. Serbia were used as a successful example from a different country.  Within Russia, participants discussed the existing co-operation work of OVD-Info and Memorial on the implementation of Lashmankin group with a large group of other NGOs, as well as the formation of new alliances focused on the rights of prisoners and sexual violence. 

The webinar closed on the topic of holding governments to account for their overall record on implementation. Strategies for accountability include using statistics (see our country implementation map), engaging constructively with authorities, (seen in the Armenian Example) and engaging with the media by press conferences and TV appearances (seen in the Zorica Jovanović example). 

We hope that the discussion on strategies to best advance implementation in Russia will be a useful contribution to our collective efforts to improve implementation. It will help us shape EIN’s support going forward.

We thank all participants who joined these webinars and also our partners and members who collaborated with us.

EIN Briefing on Domestic Violence in Russia and Prison Conditions in Ukraine

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EIN held its latest civil society briefing on 23rd November 2020. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, the event was held online.

 

The briefing focused on the following cases:

1)    Volodina v. Russia, concerning domestic violence and discrimination against women in Russia, presented by Vanessa Kogan, Stichting Justice Initiative Executive Director.

2)    The Nevmerzhitsky case, concerning overcrowding and poor material conditions of detention, the inadequacy of medical care in detention, and lack of effective remedies in all these respects, presented by Hugues de Suremain, European Prison Litigation Network, and Gennadiy Tokarev, Kharkiv Human Right Protection Group

You can find a summary of their Recommendations on these cases here.

 

The Volodina case

 

This case concerns domestic violence, including grave physical and mental suffering from physical and psychological abuse of the applicant over two years by her ex-partner. The applicant submitted over eight complaints to the authorities over two years: no attempt to protect the applicant from further violence or to open criminal proceedings against the (known) perpetrator.

 

The ECtHR found a violation of the applicants right to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Prohibition of torture and cruel treatment). The Court stated that authorities had failed to uphold their obligations to establish a legal framework to prevent the known risks of ill-treatment and to carry out an effective investigation into allegations of ill‑treatment. (para. 78-101). The Court also found a violation of the applicant's Article 14 (Prohibition of discrimination) right. “The Russian authorities failed to create conditions for substantive gender equality that would enable women to live free from fear of ill-treatment or attacks on their physical integrity to benefit from the equal protection of the law.”(para. 132)

 

While ECtHR has judged this case, the Committee of Ministers is not monitoring the implementation of the ECtHR judgment of the case.

 

The presentation was given by Vanessa Kogan, Stichting Justice Initiative Executive Director. You can find the video of their briefing below.

 SJI recommends that the Volodina case should be examined by the Committee of Ministers under the enhanced procedure, at least every six months. Also, individual measures should focus on effective ex officio criminal investigations, and that general measures should aim to eliminate current specific shortcomings.

 

Relevant documents

 

The Nevmerzhitsky Group case

The Nevmerzhitsky Group concerns poor conditions of detention, specifically, overcrowding and poor material conditions, the inadequacy of medical care, and lack of effective remedies in all these respects. The ECtHR has stated that the lack of proper medical treatment in Ukrainian prison is a structural issue, and no effective remedy is available. 

 

The presentation focused on issues related to a lack of healthcare in prison facilities. The lack of access to healthcare in Ukrainian prisons is a situation of extreme urgency. There are several issues at the core of this prison crisis, inconsistent health policy, a health system facing major systemic and structural difficulties and the inefficient management of infectious disease, and lastly difficulties exacerbated by the COVID-19. 

 

The Committee of Ministers is monitoring the Nevmerzhitsky group and will resume its examination at their 1390th meeting (December 2020) (DH).

Presentation by Hugues de Suremain, European Prison Litigation Network, and Gennadiy Tokarev, Kharkiv Human Right Protection Group. You can find the video of their briefing below.  

In particular, the presenters called on the Committee of Ministers to request the Government of Ukraine to:

  • urgently fill the vacancies for health care workers and the need for equipment and medicines;

  • clarify as soon as possible the chain of responsibility within the medical units and designate those responsible for the quality of care;

  • initiate, possibly in the form of a consensus conference, a transparent process for the transfer of prison medicine to the Ministry of Health, comprising a national debate including civil society and international organizations.

    In addition, EPLN and KHPG also called on the Committee of Ministers to:

  • separate the examination of groups of cases concerning health care in prison from those concerning material conditions of detention, as the necessary reforms involve distinct responses, actors and time frames;

  • act with the Directorate-General for Human Rights to ensure that prison health issues are given greater priority in cooperation programs and find synergies with relevant EU instruments.

 

Relevant documents

Russia Webinar 2: Best practices for promoting the implementation of ECtHR judgments in Russia

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This week EIN facilitated its second webinar on improving the impact of the judgments of the ECtHR in Russia. The webinar aimed to provide an overview of what activities might be the most impactful in promoting the implementation of ECHR judgments within the country.

Russia Webinar 2.png

The webinar was divided into two sections. The first used the results of EIN’s survey of participants to set out the variety of activities that Russian NGOs are using to promote ECHR implementation at the domestic level, as well as highlighting which activities are considered to be the most impactful. These activities included engagement with the executive branch, advocacy through the judiciary, media coverage, co-operation with other NGOs, and educational work. Presentations were carried out by two NGOs experienced in working on ECHR implementation, to explain their advocacy campaigns.

The second part of the webinar focused on best practices for promoting the implementation of ECHR judgments experienced by NGOs across Europe. The EIN Guide for Civil Society on Domestic Advocacy for Implementation of ECtHR judgments was used to guide the discussion to provided best practices on activities including advocacy with the executive, forming domestic advocacy coalitions, and communicating about the (non)implementation of judgments.

 

This webinar provided an exchange of insights and experiences between participants that we hope will help all stakeholders active in Russia to find new partners and allies for advancing the implementation of ECtHR judgments in the country. We thank all participants who joined the webinar and those who shared their insights and experiences.

 

The last webinar in the series will take place next week, entitled ‘Towards a collective strategy to advance implementation of ECtHR judgments in Russia?’ (Tuesday 24th November 2020). For more information on Domestic Advocacy for Civil Society, please see the EIN Guide for full details.

 

Want to know if EIN has a member in your state? Or want to join EIN as a member or partner? Check out our webpage to find out more. Also, don’t hesitate to get in touch with EIN if you want us to link you up with a member or partner in your country or with expertise in your area of work. There is a wealth of experience within the network, and we are here to help you learn from each other.

Joint statement regarding the non-implementation of ECtHR judgments against Azerbaijan in cases of politically motivated prosecution

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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rendered judgments identifying the politically motivated prosecution of sixteen different people in Azerbaijan. The victims include human rights defenders, a journalist, civil society activists and politicians. So far, only two of these judgments have been implemented – and only in regard to individual measures - following the acquittal of politician Ilgar Mammadov and human rights defender Rasul Jafarov in April. Since then, there has been no progress in obtaining justice for the other individual victims; and no progress toward the general measures necessary to resolve the underlying issue.

The European Implementation Network has joined with 8 other NGOs to highlight this ongoing situation and call for urgent action.

 Joint statement regarding the non-implementation of ECHR judgments against Azerbaijan in politically motivated prosecution cases 

by Amnesty International, the Baku Human Rights Club, the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, the European Implementation Network, the Human Rights House Foundation, the International Partnership for Human Rights, the Legal Education Society and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee. 

10 November 2020 

  1. Widespread use of criminal law and restrictive NGO legislation as a weapon against critical voices is an ongoing hallmark of the human rights situation in Azerbaijan. The government has tried to silence human rights defenders, including lawyers, journalists, bloggers, and civil society leaders as well as politicians by means of arbitrary prosecution and imprisonment. 

  2. So far, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rendered ten judgments against the Government of Azerbaijan – concerning sixteen victims - regarding politically motivated prosecutions (Article 18 of the ECHR). Only two have been implemented so far and only with regard to their individual measures. Progress on general measures necessary to implement all the judgments concerned, including those closed under the infringement procedure in the case of Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, under article 46.4 ECHR, is flagrantly absent. 

  3. In its most recent decision, rendered on the 4th of September 2020, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has ended infringement proceedings against Azerbaijan. It expressed satisfaction in view of the acquittal of two of the applicants, Ilgar Mammadov and Rasul Jafarov. It also called for restitutio in integrum for the other applicants who continue to endure the consequences of arbitrary criminal convictions. These include Anar Mammadli, the head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, and the prominent human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev. On the same day that the Committee of Ministers’ decision to end infringement proceedings was taken, another Azeri opposition leader, Tofig Yagublu, was convicted on what Amnesty International have described as politically motivated charges.i 

  4. Our organisations do not believe that these two acquittals alone should warrant an optimistic assessment of the actions of the Azerbaijani authorities. Nor should they warrant a decrease in the level of supervision by the Committee of Ministers. Systemic problems of reprisals and political persecution persist in Azerbaijan, as the government continues its strategy to weaken civil society and peaceful dissent. 

  5. Local human rights groups have compiled a list of political prisoners, which on 10 June 2020 included 108 people.ii Since the beginning of the pandemic, the government has continued a crackdown on dissenting voices.iii Following political opposition rallies in Baku in July 2020, more than 100 opposition leaders, supporters, and activists were detained and prosecuted on politically motivated charges or subjected to severe penalties under administrative law.iv 

  6. Even when victims of politically motivated prosecutions are released from custody, they are left with criminal records. The effects of this are significant, and include bans on carrying out professional activities (such as leading NGOs or representing clients in legal proceedings); being unable to access bank accounts; ineligibility to stand in elections; and bans on travelling abroad. 

  7. Government critics have been pursued under trumped-up charges, detained arbitrarily, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and imprisoned following unfair trials. All pillars of the criminal justice system have been compromised: starting with the police (who carry out arrests without due process); continuing with the prosecution (which uses trumped-up charges); and finishing with courts (which hand out convictions following unfair trials, in which “confessions” obtained under torture are routinely admitted as evidence). 

  8. Restrictive NGO laws were introduced in Azerbaijan in 2013-2014 and have been applied arbitrarily since then. The result has been the hindering of legitimate activities of independent NGOs critical of the government, in particular through continued arbitrary denial of registration and the application of onerous reporting, tax and other requirements creating a pretext for a string of arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of NGO leaders. Subsequent amendments in 2016-2017 created a lengthy, complex and burdensome multi-tier system of approval of grants, which de facto prevents NGOs from accessing grants from foreign donors. Each grant agreement requires approval from the Ministry of Justice and an opinion on the financial-economic expediency of the grant from the Ministry of Finance, which interpret provisions in a discretionary manner, on vague and broad grounds.v Grants are refused for areas which are considered to be already addressed by the governments or where the purpose of a grant and its financial-economic expediency can be assessed as insufficiently described. Furthermore, the state controls information over NGO donations, collects information on individuals donating to NGOs, and exercises extensive monitoring powers over NGO activities. The rules on investigating activities of NGOs give the Ministry of Justice the power to impose, in the context of inspections, requirements on NGOs that are extremely burdensome. 

  9. The entirety of this legislation has forced NGOs to operate on the fringes of the law in order to continue functioning, leaving them exposed to sanctions deriving from arbitrary interpretations of this exceedingly prohibitive legislation. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the harsh regulation of NGO activity “cannot be ignored” when looking at the politically motivated prosecution of members of civil society, because the nature of the regulations leads to the criminalization of NGO activity.vi The Courtvii, the Venice Commissionviii and the former Commissioner for Human Rights ix have all expressed grave concerns about the NGO legislation not being in line with international standards and about the arbitrary and harsh way it has been applied. 

  10. The issues of politically motivated prosecutions and the restrictive NGO framework are therefore closely intertwined. Intigam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov and Anar Mammadli, amongst others, were imprisoned under legislation governing NGOs. In these cases, accusations of criminal activity were unlawfully linked to the administrative failures to adhere to draconian NGO and grants legislation. Systemic misuse of the criminal justice system in Azerbaijan cannot be effectively addressed without carrying out reforms to change the laws that are used to facilitate them. Furthermore, a vibrant civil society is fundamental to achieving reforms to ensure independence of the judiciary and prosecution authorities, which are necessary to prevent politically motivated prosecutions - and this will not be possible under legislation that is suffocating civil society. 

  11. We, the undersigned NGOs, call upon the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to: 

  • Express serious concern for Azerbaijan’s failure to pursue any of the measures required to address the systemic causes that led to the multiple Court judgments finding politically motivated prosecutions and imprisonment of government critics, lawyers, and human rights defenders, and which led the Committee of Ministers to initiate its first infringement procedure under art 46.4 ECHR in the case of Ilgar Mammadov v Azerbaijan.

  • Maintain the Mammadli group on the agenda of every upcoming CM DH meeting, in order to apply continuous and effective scrutiny of the implementation of individual and general measures, as a follow up to the infringement procedure in the case of Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan.

  • Call upon the Azerbaijani authorities to effectively address the lack of independence in the judiciary that enables and condones arbitrary arrests and prosecutions; to end the politically motivated prosecution of members of civil society and all arbitrary restrictions on their work; and to stop reprisals for legitimate human rights work.

  • Address the issue of restrictive NGO and grants legislation in the next decision regarding the Mammadli group and request the Azerbaijani government to amend the current restrictive legislation regarding NGO activities and grants to bring it into line with the country’s obligation under international human rights law.

  • Request that the Secretariat prepare an Interim Resolution, to be issued by the Committee of Ministers at its March 2021 CM/DH meeting unless the criminal convictions of all applicants in this group are overturned by that meeting.

12. Further details of the arguments set above are available in the submissions made by Amnesty International and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre[i], the International Partnership for Human Rights[ii], and in Rule 9.1 submissions made by the victims, available here.


Endnotes

[i] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/azerbaijan-tofig-yagublu-handed-politically-motivated-sentence/

[ii] A unified list of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, The Working Group (WG) on Unified List of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan, 21 February 2019, available at:

 https://www.turan.az/ext/news/2020/6/free/Social/en/124755.htm
available at (in azeri) https://smdtaz.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Vahid-Siyasi-Mahbus-Siyahisi-10.06.2020-az.pdf

[iii] Human Rights House Foundation, Azerbaijani authorities must cease crackdown on dissenting voices, and release political prisoners, 9 September 2020.

[iv] Amnesty International Public Statement, Azerbaijan: End Brutal Crackdown on Opposition Activists, 5 August 2020, available at https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/EUR5528482020ENGLISH.pdf

[v] 1377th meeting (June 2020) (DH) - Rule 9.2 - Communication by Amnesty International, European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (27/04/2020) in the ILGAR MAMMADOV GROUP v. Azerbaijan.

[vi] Yunusova and Yunusov v. Azerbaijan, application no. 68817/14, judgment rendered on 16 July 2020, para. 192. See also Rasul Jafarov v. Azerbaijan, application 69981/14, judgment of 04 July 2016 para 120.

[vii] Rasul Jafarov v. Azerbaijan, application 69981/14, judgment of 04 July 2016 para 120.

[viii] Opinion on the compatibility with human rights standards of the legislation on non-governmental organisations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, adopted by the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission) at its 88th Plenary Session (Venice, 14-15 October 2011).

[ix] Third party intervention by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights under Article 36, paragraph 3, of the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of Rasul Jafarov v Azerbaijan, Application No. 69981/14, CommDH(2015)8,  20 March 2015.

[x] 1377th meeting (June 2020) (DH) - Rule 9.2 - Communication by Amnesty International, European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (27/04/2020) in the ILGAR MAMMADOV GROUP v. Azerbaijan

[xi] 1369th meeting (March 2020) (DH) - Rule 9.2 - Communication by International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) (12/02/2020) in the ILGAR MAMMADOV GROUP v. Azerbaijan (Application No. 15172/13)

Russia Webinar 1: Non-Implementation of ECtHR Judgments in Russia

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Over the last 10 years, 88% of the European Court of Human Rights leading judgments concerning Russia are still pending implementation. More specifically, Russia has the highest number of lending judgments pending implementation with 224 out of a total of 1274 leading cases pending in all Council of Europe countries.

This week EIN facilitated the first of three webinar sessions on improving the impact of the judgments of the ECtHR in Russia. It sessions involve thirteen of Russia’s different human rights organisations. The first session focused on the extent of non-implementation of ECtHR judgments in Russia. The session began with EIN Director George Stafford welcoming participants, followed by roundtable introductions. EIN then presented an overview of the level of non-implementation of ECtHR judgments in Russia. 

The presentation highlighted that around 90% of the leading judgments against Russia handed down by the ECtHR over the last ten years remain pending implementation. Furthermore, 7 years and 6 months is the average time that leading judgments have been pending in Russia and there has been no Action Plan or Action Report in 61.5% of leading cases. Much of these pending leading judgments include recurring human rights issues on Liberty and Security, Torture and Ill-treatment, Fair Trial and Private and Family Life. The session closed with an open discussion among participants allowing time for questions and answers.  

The webinar was EIN’s first step towards generating further conversations and strategies on how to best advance and contribute to implementing ECtHR judgments in Russia. We thank all participants who joined the webinar and look forward to the next one.

The second webinar is scheduled for Tuesday 17th November 2020, titled ‘How NGOs and human rights defenders can work collectively to address the non-implementation problem?’.