The Ministry of Justice does not intend to revise the “Dima Yakovlev law”, despite the decision of the ECHR

The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which has come into force, recognizing the “Dima Yakovlev law” as discriminatory, does not mean the need to revise it, the told TASS. press service of the Russian Ministry of Justice

“In general, the provisions of the Federal 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” were not criticized by the European Court for their discrepancies with established international practice. In this regard, any measures to revise this law are not being considered by the Russian Ministry of Justice,” the Ministry of Justice reported.

The Dima Yakovlev Law, which prohibits the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens, came into force in January 2013. After this, 45 Americans filed a class action lawsuit with the ECHR. Having considered the case, the court found that “the adoption ban unlawfully discriminated against adoptive parents” by preventing US applicants from adopting Russian children based solely on the citizenship of the adoptive parents. The court also ordered Russia to pay the plaintiffs three thousand euros each, as well as costs and expenses in the amount of $600, due to violations of Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination in conjunction with Article 8 on the right to respect for private and family life.

The Ministry of Justice believes that the ECHR “unjustifiably expanded the interpretation of the legal relations that have developed between US citizens and orphans, bringing them under the concept of ‘private life’.”