European Court Seems to Rankle Kremlin
When Ms. Kudeshkina was then dismissed, she joined a stampede of Russians in appealing their cases to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled last month that she had been improperly disciplined.
MOSCOW — Fed up with the brazen string-pulling and favor-trading in the corrupt Moscow courts, a judge named Olga B. Kudeshkina went public, criticizing the system in numerous interviews as little more than a legal bazaar — “an instrument,” as she put it, “for settling political, commercial or simply personal scores.”
Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch, was taken to court in Moscow on March 13.
But now, it seems, that path is becoming more difficult, as the Kremlin is blocking an overhaul of the European court that is intended to reduce a multiyear backlog of cases — many of them from Russia.
The dispute with the court has underscored the Kremlin’s growing antipathy to international organizations and thrown into question the commitment of Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, to confronting corruption and what he has described as Russia’s “legal nihilism.”
The strains may well be further aggravated because the court is about to rule on two appeals from Russia’s most well-known prisoner, the former oligarch Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky.
The rulings of the court, which was established under the auspices of the Council of Europe, are binding on all its member countries.
If the court sides with Mr. Khodorkovsky, it could order a new trial, potentially setting up a pivotal clash with the Kremlin.
The human rights court, based in Strasbourg, France, plays an influential role in Europe, handling appeals from countries with a total population of roughly 810 million people. Russia is the only one of the 47 members that has not approved the reform plan, which needs unanimous support to move forward.
The court appears to have increasingly rankled the Kremlin by issuing rulings that highlight corruption, torture and other official misconduct in Russia, including the pervasive practice of what is known here as “telephone justice” — a politician calling and instructing a judge how to rule.
The Kremlin has responded to the Kudeshkina case and others by attacking the credibility of the European court. “Unfortunately, the decisions of recent months and even the last year give grounds for doubting the full objectivity, the impartiality, of the European court,” Russia’s justice minister, Aleksandr V. Konovalov, said last month.
Mr. Medvedev said in December that he respected the European court, but that it “cannot and should not replace the Russian justice system.” He gave no indication that the reforms would be approved.
Russia began taking part in the court in the late 1990s. In 2000, the court received 1,987 appeals against Russia, or 8 percent of the total, court officials said.
At the end of 2008, the number of cases filed against Russia had risen to 27,250, or 28 percent of the total, far more than any other country, and out of proportion to its population.
The jump in cases from Russia has caused delays running to several years, court officials said. (The Kudeshkina case, for example, was filed with the European court in July 2005.)
The court officials said the standoff with the Kremlin had turned so contentious that the court was seeking ways to adopt reforms without Russia’s permission, which would be an unusual breach of diplomatic practice.
“There is a real crisis at the court,” said Thomas Hammarberg, the human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe. “Everyone has been very critical of Russia about it.”
Russia’s judge on the European court, Anatoly I. Kovler, who was nominated by the Kremlin, recently warned that Russia risked being suspended from the Council of Europe because it was standing in the way of the procedural changes and had delayed complying with some of the court’s decisions.
The court does not take up the vast majority of appeals that it receives, often because plaintiffs have not exhausted their legal options in their countries. In 2008, for example, it decided to consider in depth 1,671 cases from all the member countries.
But the process of sifting through cases is time consuming, and the changes, known as Protocol No. 14, would scale back the number of judges needed to evaluate each case initially.
Protocol No. 14 was proposed in 2004, and Russia signed it in 2006. But the Russian Parliament, which is closely controlled by the Kremlin, must ratify it, and has not. Russian officials say the changes would tilt the court even more against Russia.
They have also stepped up their complaints about the court’s rulings, especially those involving the war in Chechnya.
In many decisions, the European court has found that the Russian military was responsible for the disappearance and presumed killing of Chechen civilians, mostly in 1999 and 2000, according to the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group in London that specializes in these cases.
In its rulings, the European court often orders the Russian government to pay tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to Chechen plaintiffs.
The European court is expected to issue decisions soon on two appeals from Mr. Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch, which assert that his rights were violated during his arrest and first trial. If the European court rules in his favor and calls for a new trial, it would be a significant embarrassment for the Kremlin.
Russian prosecutors are currently trying Mr. Khodorkovsky in Moscow on new charges that could keep him incarcerated for many more years and dilute the impact of the coming European court rulings.
The European court also agreed recently to accept a multibillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the former management of Mr. Khodorkovsky’s oil company, Yukos, which was essentially seized by the government after his conviction. That decision is months away.
Prominent lawyers in Moscow said they were worried that the Khodorkovsky case might widen the rift over the European court, and urged the Kremlin to drop its opposition to Protocol No. 14.
Genri M. Reznik, a lawyer who is a member of a Kremlin advisory body called the Public Chamber, said senior officials needed to acknowledge that the Russian legal system was deeply troubled.
“We should not blame the mirror of the Strasbourg court if we are shown to have an ugly face,” he said.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 29, 2009, on page A8 of the New York edition
