The Secretary General came to cheer up

Dmitry Medvedev met Terry Davis President Dmitry Medvedev accepted yesterday the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis. The issue of the final abolition of the death penalty in Russia and the ratification of the 14th protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, without which it is impossible to begin the reform of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was discussed. The President and Secretary General met for the first time. Apparently, therefore, the parties carefully avoided specific statements on the issues under consideration.

“Medvedev was opened to discuss problems, and the result of negotiations in this matter was extremely positive,” said Davis Matias, Gruden Correspondent for Gazeta. Medvedev did not promise anything, but the Europeans saw positive in the fact that the president had a brief tour of the history of the liberalization of punishments in Russia and recalled that many Russian citizens advocate the return of the death penalty.

European Prosecutors General will take up human rights

Today in St. Petersburg in the Konstantinovsky Palace, 47 general prosecutors of Europe will gather. Under the chairmanship of the Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, the speakers will talk about the activities of prosecutors in the field of human rights and work outside the criminal law sphere.

The press service of the European Council “Gazeta” said that one of the main speakers at the conference will also be the Commissioner of the European Council for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg. The press service of the Prosecutor General reports that Yuri Chaika intends to hold several bilateral meetings with colleagues from Europe.

Anastasia Novikova

“For us, the most important result is the president’s readiness to act together with the EU in resolving this issue, and we believe that the result will be positive,” Gruden emphasized in an interview with the newspaper correspondent. The adviser also explained that although the moratorium on the death penalty has been operating in Russia since 1996, in this case, Davis’s proposal was to cheer Russia, take the last step on the path to the abolition of the death penalty. “We are talking about formal cancellation, as required by the standards adopted in Europe,” he said.

Ratification of the 14th protocol needs Europe no less than the abolition of the death penalty, and the point here is not in the formalities. In December 2007, the State Duma refused to ratify the document, which froze the court reform proposed by the European Council, although the need for it has long been ritted. “The EU wants to build united Europe together with Russia,” said Gruden. “Mr. Medvedev recognizes the importance that the European court has not only for Europeans, but also for Russians.”

According to the Vice President of the Center for Political Technologies, Sergei Mikheev, the wishes of the Council of Europe, as a rule, are either difficult or not feasible at all. “The expression of mutual interest says that Davis and Medvedev intended to get acquainted first of all,” he explained to the newspaper correspondent. “Moreover, the West has some hopes on Medvedev, considering him a more liberal politician, and Medvedev himself is not against such an opinion.”

After negotiations in Moscow, Davis went to St. Petersburg, where he would open a conference of the Prosecutors of the Council of Europe.

07/01/2008 / Mikhail Vinogradov, Ekaterina Yakovleva, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 121 dated 02.07.2008.