Day before the report

Tomorrow Lord Judd will report to the political committee of the Council of Europe on the situation in Chechnya

This time the PACE delegation spent two days in the Chechen Republic. She visited refugee camps, was in Grozny, met with employees of the republican prosecutor's office and judges of the newly created courts. It was the acquaintance with the Chechen judicial system, as the Vremya Novostey newspaper expected, that made the most favorable impression on the head of the delegation, Lord Judd. At his press conference in Moscow yesterday to mark the end of the mission, the Lord praised the professionalism and experience of the 22 judges, whose work is fraught with constant danger. The delegation of the European Parliament was also pleased with the obvious reduction in the presence of the army and Interior Ministry forces in Chechnya. “We have been assured that this reduction will continue,” said Lord Judd.

The Lord's concern is that there are still many more complaints from citizens in the judicial and administrative structures of Chechnya than there are cases that have reached the court. “Cases involving mass deaths of civilians at the hands of the military are being investigated slowly,” Lord noted. Of equal concern are interruptions in the supply of food and shortages of medicines and outer clothing. The saddest thing, in his opinion, is that many people want to return home, but do not know when their homes will be restored and who can guarantee their safe existence.

“It would be naive to deny the existence of international terrorism in general and its presence on the territory of Chechnya, but we cannot pay terrorists in the same coin,” said the Lord. “We must fight them with justice and always remain within the law: this applies equally to Russia, the United Kingdom, and any other country.” According to Mr. Judd, the Russian government should more actively transfer power in the republic to civilian structures, and in the near future begin to form national authorities that would be elected by the Chechens themselves.

The PACE representative is confident that the goal of the Council of Europe in relation to Russia should not be confrontation, but productive cooperation. When a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent asked Mr. Judd why the speeches of foreign observers in the West usually sound much harsher than their final statements in Moscow upon returning from the Caucasus, the lord explained that the theses and recommendations of the report are not supposed to be communicated to the press in advance. “However, I think I try to be as consistent as possible in all my performances,” he added. “My task is to objectively inform the Council of Europe about what I saw.” The Lord does not know whether the PACE Assembly will return the right to vote to Russia and procedurally has nothing to do with it: his report, corrected and supplemented by the political committee, will be heard on January 25, and the question of the status of the delegation will be discussed on Monday.

Ivan SUKHOV