"Memorial": Russia began to massively recognize violations of citizens' rights in the ECHR

In 2019, the Russian authorities began to massively recognize in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) violations of the rights of citizens to conditions of detention in places of deprivation of liberty.

As Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer at the Memorial human rights center, told Kommersant, since the beginning of the year the ECHR has had a new procedure for unilateral declarations, which is designed to relieve judges of the burden of considering similar complaints. This applies to cases where practice has already been developed and it is approximately clear what the court’s decision will be. Cases about conditions in Russian prisons fall into this category.

According to Agaltsova, in 2019, the Russian government admitted its responsibility 142 times for inadequate conditions in penal colonies. Each applicant was offered compensation from one to 12.8 thousand euros.

Lawyer of the Sitting Rus' Foundation Olga Podoplelova noted that in cases of “torture conditions” in places of deprivation of liberty, it is easier for the state to pay off than to change the system.

In 2018, 87% of all priority complaints to the ECHR came from five countries: 43% from Russia, 21% from Romania, 10% from Hungary, 9% from Turkey, 4% from Ukraine. Russia was recognized as a leader in the number of human rights violations recognized by the ECHR - 238 complaints were satisfied. This mainly concerned violations of the prohibitions on torture and illegal detention, as well as non-compliance with the right to a fair trial. In addition, Russia ranks first in the number of unexecuted decisions of the ECHR.

On January 10, 2012, the ECHR issued a pilot ruling in the case of Ananyev and others v. Russia. Violations of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights were recorded. The court ordered the Russian government to immediately eliminate violations of prison conditions after issuing 90 decisions on such complaints, including by former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which were only partially implemented. After this, the ECHR ordered the elimination of violations in another 250 similar cases.

In May 2019, the Ministry of Justice introduced a bill to the State Duma giving prisoners the right to monetary compensation if international standards of detention, including the prohibition of torture, were violated in a prison or pre-trial detention center.