Ukraine beats Russia in European Court of Human Rights case filed by Moscow

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has fully dismissed all of Russia's claims against Ukraine in a complaint filed in 2021.

Source: The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the ECHR press service, as reported by European Pravda

Details: ECHR announced the judgement in the case of Russia v. Ukraine on 18 July, based on the application filed against Ukraine by the Russian government on 22 July 2021 on ten sets of charges.

Quote: "In its decision today the European Court of Human Rights has decided, unanimously, to: strike the application out of its list of cases," the court stressed.

Details: The judgement notes that Russia has ignored a range of requests from the court and has not participated in the process since it ceased to be a member of the Council of Europe.

In April 2022, Russia submitted over 2,000 sets of documents in support of its application, but after that, it stopped communicating with Strasbourg, and, in particular, in May, it ignored the court's request to provide translations of documents and did not respond to a letter sent in November asking whether Russia was still interested in pursuing its claim. The Court "concluded that the Russian Government no longer wished to pursue their application as they had repeatedly failed to reply to its correspondence".

However, the Court specifically stressed that the Russian Federation's allegations against Ukraine were baseless on all grounds.

The Court "found no grounds relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which would require that it should nonetheless continue examination of the case," the ECHR noted, adding that the Russian complaint largely duplicates 8,500 individual complaints filed earlier. According to journalistic investigations, a significant part of these complaints was "procedural spam" generated by lawyers associated with the occupying authorities.

The decision is final.

Background:

• In the summer of 2021, Russia filed the first inter-state complaint against Ukraine with the European Court of Human Rights on ten sets of charges, accusing Ukraine of the deaths of civilians in 2014, the MH17 disaster, attacks on Russian territories, and discrimination against the Russian-speaking population.
• The Russian Federation requested the application of the 39th Rule regarding the supply of water to Crimea, obliging Ukraine to resume water supply. However, the ECHR refused to grant interim measures.
• The European Court of Human Rights has decided to continue considering cases against Russia, despite its expulsion from the Council of Europe shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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