The ECHR found the Russian law on “foreign agents” to violate human rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found the “foreign agents” law to violate human rights. This is reported on the court's website.

The ECHR awarded 10 thousand euros in compensation to each of the 73 organizations that filed the application. Among them are the Human Rights Center “Memorial”, “Agora”, “Civil Control”, “Civic Assistance”, “Levada-Center”, Committee against Torture”, “Voice”, Center for the History of Political Repressions “Perm-36”.

The court ruled that the law violates the right to freedom of assembly and association (Article 11 of the European Convention).

“The application of the “foreign agents” law resulted in the imposition of administrative fines, financial costs, restrictions on the activities of the applicant organizations and the initiation of criminal proceedings against the director of one organization. Many of the applicant organizations were liquidated for violating the requirements for “foreign agents”, or were forced to decide on self-liquidation due to an inability to pay fines or to avoid new sanctions,” the court decision says.

Former lawyer of the liquidated Memorial Human Rights Center and lawyer for OVD-Info Tatyana Glushkova commented on the ECHR decision:

“Of course, this is an important and long-awaited victory for Russian civil society. Of course, we are pleased that the European Court agreed that the concepts of “political activity” and “foreign funding” are defined in such a way that it is impossible to predict the application of this law. It is good that the Court also agreed that the creation of the “foreign agent” status in its current form was not necessary at all in a democratic society, since this law effectively puts NPOs in a situation where they are forced to either refuse foreign funding or obtain the status of a foreign agent .

At the same time, it is impossible not to say that this long-awaited performance turned out to be too long-awaited, and, unfortunately, this is not a situation where the phrase “better late than never” can be considered true. In this case, too late is de facto never.

If this decision had been made 8 years ago, 5 years ago, 2 years ago, a year ago, even six months ago, when the liquidation of two Memorials was in full swing, it would have had a positive effect - it is impossible to predict how significant, but it would have. Now that the Russian Federation has been excluded from the Council of Europe and has officially refused to implement decisions made after March 15, the effect of this decision will be minimal. This is the first one.

Secondly, we expected much more from the European Court. Especially now. Again, if such a ruling had been made 5 years ago, I would have spoken much better about it. It feels like it was made from five years ago. That is, as if all the madness with the “foreign agency” legislation that exists now does not exist.

For example, the European Court has decided not to assess in principle the purpose of the legislation. From my point of view, this was the key moment. Yes, the poor quality of the law, yes, the disproportionality of sanctions – all this is understandable. But both in complaints and in observations, we said that the very purpose of the adoption of this law was the destruction and defeat of Russian civil society. But, alas, the ECtHR refused to even consider the question of whether prosecution under the foreign agents law constitutes persecution for political reasons.

As a result, this resolution, of course, is in our favor, but it is difficult to call it anything other than half-hearted, if not toothless. Moreover, if Russia still remained a member of the Council of Europe, if there was at least some chance of the resolution being implemented, such a decision would be understandable. But now, when everything that is happening, it is already difficult to understand the motives for making such a decision.”

• On June 11, Putin signed a law allowing the Russian government not to implement ECHR decisions taken after March 15, 2022, the day the Russian Federation left the Council of Europe.