Putin proposed transferring to the Prosecutor General's Office the right to represent Russia in the ECHR

President Vladimir Putin introduced a bill that would transfer to the Prosecutor General's Office the powers of the Ministry of Justice to represent Russia in the ECHR. The amendments were published on the website of the Lower House.

“The Office of the Prosecutor General provides representation and protection of [Russia’s] interests in the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Economic Court of the Commonwealth of Independent States,” the draft says.

RBC reported in March that Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov approached Putin with such a proposal. “Against the backdrop of <…> difficult relationships with partners in the Council of Europe, the place of the prosecutor’s office <…> in the coordinate system of this organization is still high,” he wrote. Putin, according to the publication, then approved it.

Last week, Putin dismissed Mikhail Galperin, Deputy Minister of Justice, from his post as Russia's commissioner to the ECHR. At the same time, Putin appointed former employee of the presidential administration Mikhail Vinogradov as head of the department of international legal cooperation of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

It will be engaged in work at the ECHR, and Vinogradov’s work at the post, according to Kommersant, will be supervised by the former head of this department, Pyotr Gorodov, whom Putin promoted to Deputy Prosecutor General Krasnov.

Putin introduced another bill that would allow the Prosecutor General's Office to appeal to the Constitutional Court to ignore decisions of the ECHR and other international bodies if they “contradict the Constitution of Russia.”

Since 2015, this can be done by the president, the government and the Supreme Court. The Constitutional Court allowed two decisions not to be implemented - to lift the ban on voting in elections for all prisoners, regardless of the severity of the crime, and to pay 1.87 billion euros in compensation to former Yukos shareholders.