In a Resolution and Recommendation approved on Thursday 22 April after an urgent debate, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe calls on the Council of Europe’s ministerial body to use “all the tools at its disposal” to ensure the execution of the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment in the case of “Navalny v. Russia”, which entails the opponent’s immediate release.
The Committee of Ministers, which is in charge of supervising the execution of the Court’s judgments, has at its disposal Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the Assembly refers. It states that “when a High Contracting Party refuses to abide by a final judgment”, the Committee of Ministers may, “after serving formal notice to that Party” and consulting the Court, decide on “measures to be taken” against the defaulting Party.
Earlier in the morning, German Foreign Minister Michael Roth addressed the Assembly on behalf of the German Presidency and said that the Committee of Ministers was determined “to fulfil its responsibility aggressively” to ensure that both the Navalny judgment against Russia and the Demirtas and Kavala rulings against Turkey were implemented.
The execution of the Court’s judgments is a “substantive issue” that goes to the “substance of the Council of Europe”, he insisted.
The Assembly also calls on Russia to release Alexei Navalny before the next human rights meeting of the Committee of Ministers in June and to provide him with medical care.
It also requests the Committee for the Prevention of Torture to carry out a monitoring visit to the detention centre where he is being held. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)