The European Court of Human Rights has declared the “Dima Yakovlev Law” unlawful

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recognized the illegal ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens and awarded compensation to American families, according to a decision published on the court’s website.

The court received claims from 47 American citizens who filed claims both on their own behalf and on behalf of 27 Russian children. They said that in 2012, the final stages of formalizing the adoption of children took place, many of whom were sick. Diagnoses for potential adoptees included Down syndrome, developmental disabilities and other physical conditions.

In most cases, American applicants received approval from Russian authorities and confirmation that these children could not be placed with a Russian family because they required special medical care. During the last stage of the adoption process, future adoptive parents came to Russian orphanages and spent several days with the children. The applicants said that they managed to get to know the children and establish contact with them. In one case, it was about taking the brother of a previously adopted child.

When the ban on the adoption of Russian children by American families came into force, all these procedures were abruptly stopped. Attempts by the adoptive parents to obtain guardianship through the courts were rejected. Adoptive parents considered the law discriminatory, an invasion of their privacy, and cruel to children who were unable to get the medical care they needed.

The ECHR recognized that the ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens is discrimination against adoptive parents, and also noted that the ban was too sudden. By that time, the children had already established an emotional connection with potential adoptive parents, and given that by the time of the ban the families were already in the final stages of completing the paperwork, it was unfair to interrupt this process within ten days. The Russian government, according to the ECHR, was unable to provide evidence that this measure required such a sudden and indiscriminate ban on adoption by all American families, regardless of the status of the procedure and individual circumstances.

In addition, the court concluded that the “Dima Yakovlev Law” violates Article 8 “Right to respect for private and family life” and Article 14 “Prohibition of discrimination” of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. With regard to Article 3 “Prohibition of Torture”, which the American adoptive parents relied on, the court considered this complaint to be unfounded, since all the children received medical care in Russia.

The ECHR ruled to satisfy the claims of each American pair of adoptive parents, as well as parents who filed an application alone, and to pay compensation in the amount of three thousand dollars in 22 complaints, as well as to cover $600 in legal costs.

Russian ECHR judge Dmitry Delov issued a dissenting opinion. He stated that the basis for the complaint was a “technical” interpretation of the Human Rights Convention, since the adoption process had not yet been completed when the ban came into force. Dedov called the awarded amount of compensation symbolic.

“There is a more serious problem in Russia,” he noted . — The Russian government informed the Court that there remain 66 thousand children abandoned by their parents and placed in orphanages in the country. The total number of such children over the past 25 years can reach 300 thousand. Of course, this is the result of a structural social problem caused by the collapse of the value system and the lack of social responsibility. This problem cannot be solved either through intercountry adoption or through the use of political pressure.”

The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation will “carefully study this decision” and will appeal it to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, said deputy head of the department Georgy Matyushkin on Ekho Moskvy.

Since 2012, Russia has had a law “On measures of influence on persons involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation,” which prohibits US citizens from adopting children from Russia (“Dima Yakovlev Law”). The law was adopted after a court in the United States acquitted the adoptive parents of the deceased boy from Russia, Dima Yakovlev, who was adopted three months before the tragedy.

Immediately after taking over the position of Ombudsman for Children’s Rights, Anna Kuznetsova announced that she plans to develop the “Dima Yakovlev Law,” emphasizing that we are talking about “the next stages of development,” and not about changes to the law. The first step, she said, will be “setting priorities.”

In December 2015, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia does not yet plan to abolish this law, and also noted that foreigners “are not eager to adopt sick children.” Meanwhile, according to statistics from the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, foreigners adopted precisely those orphans that Russian families did not take in, for example, children whose parents suffered from alcoholism or drug addiction, had HIV, or suffered from mental disorders.

Just 20 years before the “Dima Yakovlev Law” came into force, about 60 thousand Russian orphans were adopted by foreigners. After the law came into force, 259 Russian children were left without families; their potential adoptive parents did not have time to formalize guardianship. A year later, 79 of them still could not find a new family.