Ministry of Justice: Russia is not obliged to execute the solutions of the ECHR

Russia is not obliged to execute the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights if they contradict the Constitution. According to RIA Novosti, this was announced at a meeting of the Constitutional Court by adviser to Minister of Justice Maria Melnikova.

"Russia did not transfer to any international bodies the right to influence the internal legal regime. The Constitution has priority over the decisions of the ECHR, and in the event of a contradiction, the authorities are not required to execute such decisions," she said.

At the same time, the Ministry of Justice believes that the ratification of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights does not need to be canceled. The same opinion is held in the presidential administration and the Prosecutor General.

The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gennady Kuzmin at a meeting of the KS also said that the decision of the ECHR should not be fulfilled automatically. “If national legislation fully protects the rights of citizens, then it is not necessary to execute the conflicting decisions of the ECHR,” he said, recalling that the decision of the ECHR is faced with the constitutional barriers of a number of countries, such as Germany, Great Britain and Italy.

"Now there are discussions about the limit of compliance: how much it is necessary to obey the decisions of the ECHR if they contradict the constitution. Such issues are raised in many countries. We come to the conclusion that the protection of constitutional guarantees is a priority, and not the resolution of the ECHR," Kuzmin noted.

At the same time, he stated that Russia is not trying to get away from the decision in the Yukos case, but the explanation of the CS can allow "stopping the flow of Russians complaints to Strasbourg."

The judges of the KS themselves did not ask questions to representatives of the authorities. "The court will make a decision in a closed meeting, and you will be informed about the date of his announcement," said Valery Zorkin, chairman of the Constitutional Court.

On June 15, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov said that Russia is not obliged to comply with the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the payment of compensation to the ex-Associations of the Yukos, since the procedure for the forced execution of the decision of the ECHR is not provided. So he commented on the statement of the CCS that Russia did not provide an action plan to pay compensation, which was supposed to send before June 15. According to the minister, these recommendations Russia will "only take note."

On July 31, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights awarded the former shareholders of Yukos 1.86 billion euros as a compensation for their complaint against Russia, considered back in 2011. On December 16, a collegium of five judges of the ECHR refused to transfer to the Grand Chamber of the court a petition of Russia to revise this decision.