Translated material
Reckoning for "scrapers"
The ECHR awarded 370 thousand euros Margarita Gracheva and called on the Russian authorities to adopt a law protecting women in their dwellings
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Russia to pay more than 450 thousand euros of compensation to four victims of domestic violence. Of this amount, 370 thousand should receive Margarita Grachev, whose husband chopped off her hands in a fit of jealousy. This is a record payment that the ECHR awarded one person for violating his rights. Moreover, the European court called for “urgently” to “make” specific amendments to national legislation on domestic violence.
Pilot Resolution on Home violence
The ECHR issued the first pilot resolution on the topic of domestic violence in its history. The peculiarity of the “pilot resolution” is that it concerns the systemic problem in national legislation. And the court decision lists the specific measures that the state must be carried out in order to bring the legislation in line with European standards.
- If we consider the usual decision of the ECHR, then it lists the found violations [according to a specific case]. It is said that the applicant’s rights are violated, and in order to execute the court decision, the state must itself choose measures to prevent such cases in the future. But here the court gives a specific list of measures, ” Tatyana Savvina, senior lawyer of the Legal Initiative project * and a representative of one of the victims (Elena Gershman) in the ECHR , explains. - The pilot also means that similar cases of domestic violence against Russia will be considered according to a simplified and very fast procedure, almost automatically - until a court decision is fulfilled [on the reform of legislation].
Among a number of measures that the ECHR demands from Russia immediately:
Accept the definition of "domestic violence" and all its forms.
Introduce criminal liability for all cases of domestic violence in the family. Now the first episode of beatings entails an administrative punishment.
Enter a system of urgent prohibitions on the aggressor contact with the victim, a ban on approaching a certain distance is the security orders.
To develop methods for police officers, including a risk assessment protocol - so that when a complaint about domestic violence, they conduct a survey of the victim, identify risk factors and took certain measures.
To introduce an interdepartmental mechanism of interaction between state bodies, to approve the rights and obligations of departments in the field of counteracting domestic violence.
The court ruling opens the way to the following applicants. The decision mentions that now an impressive number of similar complaints of Russian citizens have accumulated in the European court. During the pandemic, when the situation with domestic violence worsened, requests for urgent measures were received, which the court has in accordance with rule 39 of its regulations.
Officials of the Russian Federation have three months to send a request for a review of the case.
“If the court approves the request, 17 judges gather, and they re -examine the case,” explains Tatyana Savvina, “this is a new consideration of the case in a more expanded composition.” But this is possible only if it affects some serious issues of law and practice. Everything is obvious here. I do not think that the case will be referred to the Grand Chamber.
“Of course, I hope that they will not appeal, but in our country I, honestly, will not be surprised,” said Margarita Gracheva.
The case of Margarita Gracheva
In almost every photo on a personal page on Instagram, Margarita Gracheva smiles broadly. A beautiful charming brunette. Mom of the three sons. The third baby was born in a second marriage.
Margarita married Dmitry Grachev, whom she was familiar with school, in 2012. The family lived in Serpukhov near Moscow, the tragedy occurred five years after the wedding. She went to work after the decree - the husband began to be jealous. One night he beat Margarita. Then at the trial he did not deny this: “My flask whistled then ( “ my head did not think. ” - Ed. ). Think, well, hit several times on the thighs. And the children did not see this, they generally slept behind the closet. ”
When Dmitry found out that his wife was going to file for divorce, he began to threaten her with a murder.
He promised to pour acid. According to Margarita, he allegedly said: "I will put everyone together with the children in the car - and at a speed of two hundred in the wall."
“I will take you towards Peter, you will stay there, and no one will find you. I don’t feel sorry for you to sit down, but I can also connect other people to be removed, I already found out everything, even where you can get weapons. ”
Then he took him to the forest, where he threatened to kill. Margarita spoke about this to the district police officer - he refused to institute criminal proceedings.
A month later, the man repeated the trip to the forest. He planned the brutal reprisal in advance: he bought an ax, prepared the burning. Burning houses, as Margarita later said so that she would not die from blood loss.
“He said something, it seems he liked that I was scared:“ You say, you say, you want to buy and drive it. Ha ha! You will not have a car or men, you won’t even stroke the children, but you loved to do it so much, ”recalls Margarita in his book“ Happy without Hands ”, which he will write with his mother years later. - At that moment I decided that he generally wanted to kill me, I did not think about my hands. [...] Then he began to chop, the type of blood did not cool him, on the contrary ... he beat and beat. I screamed strongly and all thought why I did not turn off in any way. After all, I am a coward. But consciousness did not go away. And he beat and beat, probably hit forty times. I tried to crawl, then he jumped on my back and began to chop the ax on the leg. It was very painful, I remember how the stupid blade plunged into the skin, it seemed to be torn. ”
It was not possible to save the right brush - instead of it, a bionic prosthesis was installed. Fragments of the left hand, the police found a few hours later in the forest. Doctors managed to sew the severed part of the hand. Then several operations were carried out on it. But it was not possible to restore functionality even half.
Margarita was scheduled for the largest compensation, given its expenses for a bio -onic prosthesis and maintaining its work. Meanwhile, the criminal case of negligence against the former district police officer, who did not respond to the woman’s statement, was terminated.
Dmitry Grachev was sentenced to 14 years in a colony under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - "intentional infliction of serious harm to health." He called the court’s decision “inadequate”: “Why do they give me a deadline, as some kind of gangster, a recidivist, always leading an immoral, criminal lifestyle? If absolutely all witnesses, acquaintances, friends characterize me as a positive and decent person. ”
On the fourth anniversary of the tragedy on December 11, Margarita wrote a post about what had happened on Instagram. In numerous comments they wrote to him: “Why did you get into the car again if he had already taken you off with a knife? So you brought him. ”
Margarita married a second time and gave birth to a third son. She made a publication as she was discharged from the hospital - in response, messages from the supporters of the “male state” ** [movements, whose supporters shared the ideas of the patriarchy and nationalism].
- I have armor. I am used to all this time and do not read the haters, ”says Margarita. - It doesn't catch me. But I just left the hospital, there were photographs from childbirth, and the “male state” ** pounced on Yaroslav [the newborn].
I was very offended. Okay, you already finish me off as you want, but the child who was only born ... I then closed the page.
Margarita says that he has not perceived his history for a long time as an “isolated case” - only “on the country's scale”.
-I seriously do not understand what should happen-the Russian authorities should suffer from violence for the Russian authorities, although I will not wish anyone like that, and then they will understand that this problem exists?
The case of Natalia Tunikova
The decision of the European Court is officially called "Tunikova and others against Russia." Natalya Tunikova was the first to file a complaint with the ECHR, in 2016. Then her case was combined with complaints of three more Russians.
For two years, she was beaten by her cohabitant Dmitry Novoselsky. On August 10, 2014, he beat Natalia before losing consciousness.
When she came to, she realized that the man was dragging her by the hair towards the balcony. He threatened that he would now throw it off the 16th floor. Protecting, she hit him with a kitchen knife.
The man himself called an ambulance and the police.
A criminal case was opened against Natalia on charges of intentionally causing serious harm to health (part 1 of article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Then the article was retrained to cause harm to health in case of exceeding the limits of the necessary defense (Article 114 of the Criminal Code).
Kuzminsky District Court found Natalia guilty. She was punished in the form of correctional labor for a period of six months. In 2015, she fell under an amnesty in honor of the anniversary of Victory.
The criminal case against Dmitry Novoselsky was not opened.
“The trial in my case in the European Court lasted four and a half years-some plans for the career that I had, collapsed,” Natalya recalls in a conversation with the “new”. - I constantly waited for me to be called to the investigator. The only way I had was the social activity that I began to engage in.
Natalia began to receive calls from all over Russia from injured women: “I am a human rights activist and, being a public person, I was an expert on many television programs. When she told their story-the people of show business simply spoke in an open text on the air: you see, this can happen to you, maybe with some kind of housewife, but with me, with people like me, this cannot be. ”
- One of the consequences of the decree made is that the complaints of other women in time will be considered in an accelerated manner by analogy with this pilot decision. We opened the way for them so that they would turn and receive some kind of satispulation from the European structure to defense. Now I have the feeling that I have suffered extremely. My body gave a tremendous failure. I have oncology. Of course, I associate this with many years of stress.
The ECHR ordered Russia to pay Tunikova compensation in 25 thousand euros.
The case of Irina Petrakova
According to the decision of the ECHR, Irina Petrakova was subjected to violence by her husband for eight years of marriage. Irina's complaint says about 23 episodes of violence.
According to the woman, her husband beat her, including struck on her stomach when she was in the fifth month of pregnancy. The worst episode occurred in 2014. For an hour, my husband beat Irina for an hour, dragged by the hair. And when she managed to run out of the stairwell - according to her, he pushed off the stairs. Screams heard the neighbors, hid Irina at home and called the police. Irina was refused a criminal case against her husband. She diagnosed three concussions in six months.
The ECHR decided to pay Petrakova compensation in 25 thousand euros.
The case of Elena Gershman
The resolution of the ECHR states that Elena Gershman was subjected to 15 episodes of violence by her ex -husband. As a result of the beatings, she received numerous bodily harm: traumatic brain injuries, hematomas, bruises. In 2016, Elena left her husband, taking with her their common two -year -old daughter Eve. After the court’s decision, according to which the girl was supposed to stay with her mother, Elena's husband took her daughter and was hiding with her in Minsk for a year and a half.
According to the woman, everything happened when she walked with the child from the store. A car stopped nearby, four masks jumped out of it and grabbed a girl:
“I did not give the child, but my hands were unclenched, they pulled out the child, scored into the car and left.”
Now little Eve lives with her mother. On Elena's page on Facebook, under the photo in with the in -place letters it is written: “Eve and my mother !!!”.
The representative of Gershman Tatyana Savvina said that Elena's complaint in the ECHR was filed in 2017. The court ordered Russia to pay Gershman compensation in the amount of 25 thousand euros.
"We expect that the ECHR will wake the state"
“Such a significant decision of the ECHR shows that the country has not fulfilled obligations for a very long time in the framework of the European Convention [On Human Rights],” said Marie Davtyan, lawyer and head of the Center for Protection of the victims of domestic violence . - You need to not just adopt the law on domestic violence. It should be a law of certain quality. So that it provides for the determination of the types of violence, including persecution. Develop a mechanism of interagency interaction, organize the training of employees, the issuance of security orders.
Marie Davtyan enters the working group under the Federation Council, which is developing a bill on domestic violence. However, according to Davtyan, the authorities have not taken active actions in this direction since the beginning of the pandemic.
To the question of who prevents the promotion of the bill, the lawyer says: “It seems to me that this is a matter of conservative views of the highest officials of the State Duma and the Federation Council, which do not really understand why this is needed. Rather, they tend to believe that domestic violence is a family business that can hardly be so serious as to intervene in it. All people quarrel, but why are we going to take any measures? ”
Next in line in the ECHR for consideration of the case is at least two dozen women. According to Davtyan, these are only those who she knows about whom. “These are those who no longer see the point of doing something in Russian courts.”
“We expect a pilot resolution will wake up the state to urgently take measures to protect the victims,” says lawyer Tatyana Savvina. - There is nowhere to wait for. So many women were killed, crippled. The pilot resolution is the strongest of the possible decisions of the ECHR.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not want to comment on the decision of the ECHR, noting: “We believe that the current legislation provides all the necessary tools to combat this evil, law enforcement agencies make efforts.”