Reforming domestic remedies against human rights violations in the Russian Federation: general and specific issues

The article is an analysis of the dynamics of domestic remedies against human rights violations in the Russian legal system in recent years. The State’s obligation to create effective domestic remedies for the protection of human rights and freedoms is established by the basic international documents on human rights protection and reflects the interaction between national and international levels of such protection. These obligations of the State are an illustration of the subsidiarity principle that lies at the foundation of international mechanisms of human rights protection. Moreover, the effectiveness of domestic remedies is closely linked to the enforcement of international courts’ judgments on the adoption of general measures to get rid of systemic/structural problems, as general measures normally presume the creation of effective national mechanisms to solve them. In the case-law of the ECtHR domestic remedies are divided into preventive and compensatory ones, and it is a combination of both that ensures the necessary level of effectiveness. Besides, there may be general or special remedies, depending on the scope of rights and freedoms whose violations they are called upon to prevent. In the Russian legal system we observe synchronisation of general (judicial) means of human rights protection which must be exhausted before lodging an application with the European Court of Human Rights. If earlier these means varied in accordance with the type of proceedings – from appeal up to supervisory review – currently cassation appeal has been recognised by the ECtHR as an effective remedy in all types of proceedings. As a result, is should be exhausted before applying to Strasbourg. The last example of this kind was in the decision Anikeyev and Ermakova v. Russia on the admissibility of a complaint arising from the new cassation appeal in criminal proceedings. However, the question of supervisory review proceedings in their new format and of the effectiveness of procedures in misdemeanour (administrative) proceedings remain open. As regards specific remedies relating to particular types of human rights and freedoms, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe distinguishes systemic problems that call for the adoption of general measures from improvement of domestic remedies against violations of human rights. To illustrate this in the article, the authors have chosen cases on disappearances in the North Caucasian region and beyond it. The enforcement of ECtHR’s judgments in this type of case is particularly complex as it implies the adoption of a whole set of various measures – both individual and general – the list of which goes well beyond measures of only a legal nature. It produces particular difficulty in enforcing this group of judgments.

About the authors: Maria Filatova – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Head of the Laboratory of International Justice of the International Law Department, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia; Evgeniy Fokin – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Researcher of the Laboratory of International Justice of the International Law Department, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Filatova M., Fokin E. (2021) Reformirovanie sredstv zashchity prav chheloveka v Rossii: obshchie i chastnye voprosy [Reforming domestic remedies against human rights violations in the Russian Federation: general and specific issues]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 96–116. (In Russian).

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