Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law amending the Federal Law 'On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation'. According to the document, the Constitutional Court of Russia may decide whether to fulfill or not the decisions of international human rights courts.
According to experts, first of all, the law is aimed at protecting the ECHR verdicts, if they contradict the Russian Constitution
The Constitutional Court noted that in most cases there is no conflict between the Russian Constitution and the Human Rights Convention. However, if a conflict emerges and the ECHR interpretation contradicts the Russian Constitution, Russia will have to refuse from strict compliance with the ECHR decision, TASS reports.
Associate Professor of the department of state and legal disciplines at the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IGSU) RANHiGS, Kira Sazonova, said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that "the law on the priority of the Russian Constitutional Court over the decisions of the ECHR has highly polarized the Russian legal community already in its discussion phase".
According to her, there are two global vectors now. "On the one hand, some experts strongly welcome this law, especially after the 'Yukos case'. On the other hand, the international lawyers, who are used to accentuating part 4 of article 15 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993, which declares the priority of international law, found themselves in an ambiguous situation, when there is the likelihood of a situation in which the primacy of international law could come into conflict with national jurisdiction," Kira Sazonova said.
However, the expert drew attention to the fact that after a closer look it became clear "that the adoption of this law was vital."
"It is important to understand that international law is directly dependent on the current situation in international relations. In light of the current political situation and information aggression against Russia, we cannot rely on an objective impartial examination," Sazonova explained.
In conclusion, the expert noted that Russia is not the first country in the world which chose this route. "The United States has followed the practice of defending its national interests in such situations for a long time."
The Director of the Diplomatic Resolution of International Controversies Center of the Russian Academy of Economy and State Administration, ad hoc judge of the European Court for Human Rights, Dmitry Matveyev, drew attention to the existence of similar laws in other countries. "The authors of the bill and the Constitutional Court often emphasized that it is not our idea, such a practice exists in several European countries. Ideally, perhaps, we should build our legislation and practice to avoid such situations. But today, when relations between the members of the international community are very complex, the adoption of such a measure can be justified," he said.
Matveyev expressed confidence that we will resort to the new law on the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation infrequently. "Even when it was discussed in recent months, there were only one-two-three examples of verdicts which might require the intervention of the Constitutional Courts, no more. I do not think that the number of applications in the future will be very different from these numbers," the lawyer expects.
