Права человека. Практика Европейского Суда по правам человека

�? (22) Happy 2008 New Year, our dear readers! A new year always means new plans and new projects. Thus, our journal has entered the third year of its publication with high hopes and big plans. We will certainly continue covering the activity of the European Court of Human Rights and everything that relates to this international institution. I earnestly hope that the newly elected State Duma will ratify the Protocol No. 14 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and in the near future this document, already signed by the Russian Federation, will take legal effect. After that, it will become possible to start working upon new Protocol (No. 15), which will take notice of all comments, which were accumulated not only by the Russian Federation, but also by the member States of the Council of Europe, as well as by the European Court itself. Two momentous events will take place in the European Court in the end of January of the new year. There will be the ceremony of the opening of the Judicial Year at the European Court, and we will cover this event in the journal. There will be election of the Vice-President of the European Court and Presidents of the Sections. Election of the new leaders of the European Court are especially essential for Russia, since there will be election of the President of the Section, which handles cases in applications against Russia. Considering the rotation among the judges, which occurred lately, election of the President of the «Russian» Section is as important the election of the President of the European Court that took place a year ago. We would like to hope that the office of the President of the Section that handles most cases in applications against Russia would be occupied by a judge elected from the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. We will also cover the event in our journal. Read More Content �?2 (21) The 28th Conference of European Ministers of Justice took place in Spain between 24 and 26 October 2007. The Russian Federation Minister of Justice Vladimir V. Ustinov, delivering his remarks to the participants of the Conference, touched upon essential issues related to access to justice for loosely protected groups of population, such as children, juvenile offenders and migrants. You may find information about the Conference on the pages of our journal. In Strasbourg, on 7 June 2007, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of OAO Plodovaya Kompaniya v. Russia. The applicant in the case is a large Russian producer of a number of brands of vodka and derivatives. It has appropriated the legal succession of a State enterprise, which enabled the applicant company to use such world-known trademarks as Vodka Stolichnaya, Vodka Moskovskaya and other brands of Russian vodka as its own property and in its own commercial interests. In its application submitted to the European Court the applicant company alleged that the final and binding judgment in the arbitrage proceedings, it was a party to, was quashed by way of the supervisory review procedure allegedly in breach of Articles 6, 13, 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. However, the European Court did not consider propositions of the applicant company to be well-founded and completely dismissed its claims. Read More Content
�?1 (20) In Strasbourg, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia gave a speech at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly autumn session. In this issue, we publish his speech wherein His Holiness outlines the Russian Orthodox Church’s vision of the past, present and future of the European continent In Moscow, on 12�?3 October 2007, the 10th International Forum on constitutional justice «Constitutional Principle of a Social Welfare State and Its Application by Constitutional Courts» was held. Eminent jurists, scholars and practitioners, from Russia and other European States, made their presentations at the Forum. President of the Russian Federation Constitutional Court Valery D. Zorkin made his welcoming remarks. Judge Anatoly I. Kovler spoke on behalf of the European Court of Human Rights (his welcoming remarks are published in the journal). In Kazan, on 29�?0 October 2007, the seminar for Russian lawyers «Particular Features of Application of the European Convention of Human Rights in the Russian Federation: Right to Freedom and Personal Inviolability» was held. The seminar was organised jointly by the Council of Europe and the Russian Federation Federal Chamber of Advocates. Judge Anatoly I. Kovler of the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe expert Dovydas Vitkauskas made their presentations before the audience of lawyers. The seminar will be helpful to Russian lawyers in their wider use of the European Convention in their professional practice. Read More Content
�?0 (19) By the Decree of the Russian Federation President No. 1219, 24 September 2007, with a view to advance representation of the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation is authorised, in order to provide for the activity of the Russian Federation Representative before the European Court of Human Rights, to assign up to five staff officials to fulfil their functions being attached to the Permanent Representation of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe. Opening in Strasbourg of the «permanent representation» of the Russian Federation Representative before the European Court of Human Rights will undoubtedly not only allow to deal with cases against the Russian Federation more efficiently, but will also open much wider opportunities for the Russian Federation Representative to see into cases against other Contracting States. It will also help to organise �?more effectively �?the activity with a view to bring the jurisprudence of the Court with respect to other Contracting States to the notice of Russian law-application bodies and officials. Read More Content
�? (18) The main topic of the current issue of the journal is the interview of Mr Valery D. Zorkin, the President of the Russian Federation Constitutional Court, wherein he addresses the role of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Russian law: «In modern-day conditions, the Convention in fact transforms into sui generis all-European constitution of human and constitutional rights and liberties, while in Russia, who is a part of the European legal arena, the Convention is an integral part of our legal system». At the same time, Mr Valery D. Zorkin noted, the European Court of Human Rights and its judicial acts are subsidiary instruments: «The mission of the Strasbourg Court is not that it has to shift the burden of national States to protect human rights onto some supranational institutions, but first and foremost, to see that by the means of precedential decisions uniform apprehension and application of the of the Convention provisions are followed by the domestic courts, thus “taking rights back home�? It follows that the Russian courts are under obligation to secure implantation of the Convention onto the fabric of the Russia’s legal arena». «Judgments and decisions by the Strasbourg Court construing provisions of the Convention are of universal precedential value for all countries participating in the Convention and legal approaches pertaining to the interpretation of the Convention are the rules of binding nature». Read More Content �? (17) We continue publishing materials related to Sisojeva and others v. Latvia, including the judgment of the Grand Chamber in the case, which overruled the earlier judgment of the Chamber and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. It seems that the judgment may predetermine the fate of Ilaşcu and others against Moldova and Russia as regards the execution of the judgment in the latter case and new potential claims by the applicants considering that all applicants had been released from prison. Following the logic of the Grand Chamber in Sisojeva and others v. Latvia, if «the matter giving rise to the applicants�?complaint under <�?gt; the Convention has been resolved», it is possible to strike the application out of the European Court’s list of cases. The journal will be publishing most interesting judgments of the European Court with our commentaries, especially in those cases where the Grand Chamber of the European Court overrules judgments of a Chamber of the Court and changes its own case-law. Read more Content �? (16) You have in front of you, dear readers, the seventh issue of our journal. The issue contains much useful and important information. Particularly I would like to draw your attention to two materials: the article by Mr Vincent Berger, the Jurisconsult of the European Court of Human Rights «Une nouvelle condition de recevabilite des requetes individuelles a la Cour de Strasbourg»; translations of judgments by the Chamber and the Grand Chamber of the European Court in the case of Sisojeva and Others v. Latvia (no. 60654/00) and other material related to the case. Mr Vincent Berger's article addresses the issue of new criteria of admissibility in the light of changes in the Convention provided that Protocol No. 14 to the Convention takes legal effect. The author suggests (and it is hard not to concur with him) that «Г interpretation de la Convention devrait connaitre des evolutions qui seront autant de defis a relever par le jurisprudence de la Cour: l'emploi de la notion de victime, l'epuisement des voies de recours internes, l'elaboration de principes directeurs et la determination de la satisfaction equitable»... Read more Content �? (15) Lately, the European Court of Human Rights was being criticised not only by individuals who were unsuccessful in applying to the Court, but also by some Russian State bodies (there is always someone who is displeased with a court). So, the State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal Assembly, while criticising the Court, failed to decide upon the ratification of the Protocol No. 14 to the Convention (in more detail, please see the material published in the 2nd issue of the journal, 2007). Mass media in Russia attempt to depict the European Court not as the body of justice but as an instrument of some «politics». It is hard for me to concur with such allegations. Having worked with the Court for a rather long period, actually for seven years now, I happened to see a «multifarious Court», but in any case I dare to assert that this institution is an important, indeed a very important judicial instrument of human rights protection in the European legal arena. The Court was formed not against someone: it is an instrument called upon to assert and promote uniform principles of human rights protection in the European community of nations. Undoubtedly, the Court erred, errs and shall err, and it seems that such erring include its judgments or decisions in Sisojeva and others v. Latvia, Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia, Kolosovskiy v. Latvia, although there were judgments or decisions a contrario, in particular in the cases of Slivenko v. Latvia, ОАО Plodovaya Kompaniya v. Russia, Klimentiyev v. Russia. Read more Content �? (14) L’édition de mai de notre revue paraît à la veille de la fête de la Victoire sur le fascisme. La contribution à cette victoire des peuples habitant le territoire de l’ex-URSS est inestimable. À la veille de cette grande fête, nous transmettons à tous nos félicitations les plus sincères! Nous adressons nos meilleurs voeux d’anniversaire à Larissa Brytcheva, conseillère du Président de la Fédération de Russie, chef de la Direction d’État et de droit auprès du Président de la Fédération de Russie et membre du conseil de rédaction de notre revue. En ces journées de commémoration de la Victoire, Jean-Paul Costa, Président de la Cour Européenne des droits de l’homme, est attendu en Russie pour sa première visite officielle à l’invitation de Valéry Zorkine, Président de la Cour Constitutionnelle de la Fédération de Russie. Cette visite est d’une importance considérable pour le renforcement de la coopération entre la Fédération de Russie et la Cour Européenne qui est un institut européen fondamental de défense des droits de l’homme. Read more Content �? (13) Indeed, the sequence number �?13 �?of the current issue of the «Human Rights. Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights» journal is the number of anniversary issue: it was exactly a year ago, in April 2006, that the first issue of journal was published, the journal being founded by the Council of Judges of Russian Federation and the International Union of Jurists. During the past year the journal attained renown not only in Russia but abroad well. Our readers comprise, inter alia, judges and staff members of the European Court of Human Rights. The journal becomes a discussion place for an exchange of opinions of all those, who are not indifferent to the issues of human rights protection in the context implementation of the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the case-law of the European Court Human Rights: twelve issues of the journal contain articles by renowned Russian foreign authors, which discussed essential issues of the activity of the European Court of Human Rights and of the protection of human rights in the European legal arena. Read more Content �? (12) Mme Veronika V. Milinchuk was appointed as the Representative of the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights by the Decree of the Russian Federation President No. 371, 20 March 2007. The event will be covered in more detail in the next issue of the journal. We are confident that the roles of Russia in the European human rights mechanism will expand. The 8th of March was the anniversary date in the life of Mr Andrey A. Trebkov: he was celebrating his 70th birthday. Mr Andrey A. Trebkov is the President of the international non-governmental association «International Union of Jurists», which is a co-founder of our journal, and he is a member of the Editorial Council of the «Human Rights. Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights» Journal. The Editorial Council, Editorial Board and all employees of the journal most cordially greet Mr Andrey A. Trebkov on the occasion of his anniversary birthday. The issue of the journal is mostly about the supervisory review proceedings in Russia’s courts. We open the discussion on the subject by publishing the latest legal material in Russian and in English (the latter being aimed at our foreign readers, of course) and articles by eminent Russian jurists, Mr Boris Ya. Polonskiy and Mr Nikolay M. Kipnis, on the issue of the supervisory review proceedings. Read more Content �? (11) Mme Veronika V. Milinchuk was appointed as the Representative of the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights by the Decree of the Russian Federation President No. 371, 20 March 2007. The event will be covered in more detail in the next issue of the journal. We are confident that the roles of Russia in the European human rights mechanism will expand. The 8th of March was the anniversary date in the life of Mr Andrey A. Trebkov: he was celebrating his 70th birthday. Mr Andrey A. Trebkov is the President of the international non-governmental association «International Union of Jurists», which is a co-founder of our journal, and he is a member of the Editorial Council of the «Human Rights. Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights» Journal. The Editorial Council, Editorial Board and all employees of the journal most cordially greet Mr Andrey A. Trebkov on the occasion of his anniversary birthday. The issue of the journal is mostly about the supervisory review proceedings in Russia’s courts. We open the discussion on the subject by publishing the latest legal material in Russian and in English (the latter being aimed at our foreign readers, of course) and articles by eminent Russian jurists, Mr Boris Ya. Polonskiy and Mr Nikolay M. Kipnis, on the issue of the supervisory review proceedings. Read more Content �? (10) In 2007, we are continuing publication of materials and documents related to the activity of the European Court of Human Rights: in the current issue, we offer statistical information about the Court for September 2006 and now we have formed a monthly chronicle of cases against Russia. The information section related to the activity of the Council of Europe is expanded. We published the offi cial information on the Council of Europe made public by the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the organisation chart of the Secretariat of the Council of Europe, press releases and other information by the Council of Europe on the current issues of the Organisation’s activity. Read more Content