Russia is likely to ignore the European rights court’s demand for the immediate release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, legal experts said as Moscow categorically rejected the calls.
Navalny, 44, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for his release on Jan. 20, days after his arrest at a Moscow airport. The Strasbourg-based court said Wednesday it had upheld that request, which was motivated by claims that Navalny’s life was in danger if he remained in custody, and told Moscow to release the Kremlin critic “with immediate effect.”
Legal experts are unanimous in that the ECHR cannot force Russia to comply with its ruling. Russia’s justice minister himself pointed to constitutional changes introduced last year that ban the execution of international treaties if they contradict Russia’s basic law.
Lawyers are divided on whether the ECHR’s demand to free Navalny is binding, citing disagreements over its 2005 ruling for persons in need of international protection.
“The ECHR itself maintained that the measures are non-binding for a long time,” Alexei Ispolinov, head of the international law department at Moscow State University, told The Moscow Times.
That position, which Ispolinov said the ECHR reversed with the 2005 ruling, “contributed to the fact that interim measures have not been executed in several instances, or most of the time to be exact.”
But Sergei Golubok, who represents Russian plaintiffs at the ECHR, maintained that Russia must abide by the demand “as a requirement of both international and Russian law.”
“Attempts to find justifications for ignoring this decision are outside the legal plane,” Golubok told the Fontanka.ru news website, echoing comments made earlier by Navalny’s senior allies when news of the ECHR ruling broke.
Others say the ECHR could respond to Russia’s disobedience by increasing the amount of damages Moscow must pay for imprisoning Navalny or even suspending its membership in the Council of Europe (CoE), a 47-member body that oversees the court and upholds the rule of law on the continent.
Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said Moscow is ready to be stripped of CoE membership for its refusal to release Navalny.
Russia’s failure to comply with the court’s demands may also lead the ECHR to issue a more stringent ruling down the line and order higher damages paid to Navalny, according to human rights lawyer Vanessa Kogan.
The court could “add new violations to the case under consideration and increase the amount of monetary compensation,” Kogan — whose deportation from Russia has itself been halted under a similar ECHR interim measure late last year — told Open Media.
(c) The Moscow Times
What will happen? The EU will remove Russia from the ECHR, PACE, CofE, SWIFT, and apply devastating sanctions. OK I made that up in my dreams. What will really happen, Muscovy will keep pushing, knowing the bayonet will never reach backbone. The ECHR will huff and puff, increase the global warming by a few degrees, then exclaim we need dialogue with Russia.
The USA is huffing and puffing too. Funny how Germany was on the verge of cancelling NS2 by themselves until Biden was elected. Now Biden is continuing the policy of Leading from Behind and worrying about giving citizenship to 11 million Mexicans instead of taking care of the citizens of the USA and her Allies.
11 mio? Seriously? Any link?
https://www.voanews.com/2020-usa-votes/undocumented-immigrants-cheering-possible-citizenship-path-under-biden
All guaranteed lifetime clients of the socialist welfare state and therefore guaranteed Dem voters.
Welcoming legal integrating law-obiding loyal hard-working immigrants is one thing, naturalizing illegal criminal scum is another. Of course not all of them are necessarily bad, but a mojority is scum. Why does the world hate white folks so much? We didn’t do the holocaust. Most of our grandparents were fighting nazi scum on the battlefields.
No successful country can thrive without immigration of talented people. No successful country can thrive with illegal invaders, because they pose multiple threats: 1/ many or most are illiterate in their own language and therefore will require welfare for life 2/ many are from primitive cultures and pose an actual threat to the native citizens: especially girls and women 3/ they have a very high birth rate 4/ most will vote for leftist parties.
The hard left Dem party will give away as many passports as possible in order to enhance their voter bloc. They will also try to create two new Dem states : DC and PR; which will be even more of a welfare state than Hawaii.
I see none of those 8 pictured in the article are starving, deprived people. They seem to be doing very well on Nanny-wages….
Ahem…….
Cough…cough…
Puke……………
Meanwhile I have to save in order to pay the heating bill this month.
Sponsored by Menendez and Sanchez. Imagine that…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/18/lawmakers-introduce-president-joe-biden-immigration-legislation/6726804002/
Could be worse, it could be 11 million Muslims.
There’s not much difference. 😕
Doing this is an invitation for the next 11 million and then the next 11 million and then the next 11 million …
What a sorry piece of leftist shit Biden is should be obvious to anyone bynow with an IQ higher than his or her shoe size.
“Russia is likely to ignore the European rights court’s demand for the immediate release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny…”
Seriously now, we all here knew this right from the get-go. My question is; don’t the monkeys in Europe know this from the get-go as they set-up the request? My guess is yes. Next question; if they know that the mafiosi will get the bends from laughing over their request, don’t they have a “plan B” as a consequence? My guess is yes. Next question; what is the consequence? You guessed it, they will punish mafia land with lots of gimpy dialogue.
Seriously now, why do the Europeans enjoy making such fools of themselves … over and over and over again?