After several days of intense consultations with the European Court of Human Rights, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe ruled on Wednesday morning 23 March that “following its expulsion from the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022, the Russian Federation will cease to be a High Contracting Party to the European Convention on Human Rights on 16 September 2022”.
The examination of approximately 17,000 pending Russian cases, which were suspended by the Court on 16 March, will therefore be able to resume and citizens who are under Russian jurisdiction will be entitled to lodge applications against Russia for violations of the Convention that occur within the next six months, which is the time limit provided for in Article 58 of the Convention.
Inter-state cases that have already been initiated by Ukraine against Russia will also remain under the jurisdiction of the Court, one of which, regarding the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 in the Donbass, was brought jointly with the Netherlands.
“The question arose as to how decision-making should be structured between the Court, as a judicial body, and the Committee of Ministers, which is responsible for the political supervision of the execution of its judgments”, explained Edoardo Stoppioni, professor of public law at the University of Strasbourg and member of the Human Rights Commission of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
In his opinion, “it is essential that the Human Rights Convention is applied to the end”. “One might question the usefulness of the forthcoming judgments in the face of Putin’s Russia, but one has to believe in the Rule of law and in the importance of the Court’s role in stating its content”, he added. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)