The Circle of Injustice
The European Court of Human Rights: the last hope of justice?
Download 433.94 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- CONCLUSION
The European Court of Human Rights: the last hope of justice?Given the systematic failure of the Russian criminal justice system to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations committed by members of law enforcement agencies in Ingushetia and across the North Caucasus as a whole – many are looking to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as the last and only legal institution capable of providing them with some kind of remedy. However, the road to Strasbourg is long and complicated, and only a trickle of cases from Ingushetia has to date reached the ECtHR. As of 22 February 2012, the ECtHR had delivered rulings in 10 cases,169 all in favour of the applicants, fully or partly. The details of these cases provide a compelling record of enforced disappearances, the use of torture by law enforcement officials, deaths in custody including extrajudicial executions and the failure to investigate. Beyond Ingushetia, as of 22 February 2012, the ECtHR had delivered judgements in 184 cases from the North Caucasus – all but one of which found in favour of the applicants. The Russian authorities have consistently paid applicants the compensation awarded by the ECtHR. However, the Russian Federation has systematically failed both to demonstrate progress regarding investigation of such cases in general,170 and to implement individual measures mandated by the Court.171 The Russian authorities’ persistent failure to undertake effective investigations in cases on which the ECtHR expressly ruled that it should, has now been exposed in one of the Court’s own decisions relating to two cases from Chechnya. On 24 February 2005 the ECtHR found in favour of the applicant in the case of Isayeva v. Russia.172 The case concerned the bombing of the village of Katyr-Yurt in Chechnya by the Russian armed forces in February 2000, during which Zara Isayeva’s 23-year-old son and three underage nieces were killed. The Court unanimously held that there had been a violation of the right to life. It also found that the Russian authorities had failed to provide the applicant with an effective domestic remedy and to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the bombardment. On 2 December 2010, the Court passed a decision on case of Abuyeva and Others v. Russia (the judgement became final on 11 April 2011) which related to the same bombing of Katyr-Yurt in February 2000. The judgement confirmed the Court’s findings in the Isayeva judgement, and reiterated the Russian authorities’ failure to conduct an effective investigation into the incident and to provide an effective domestic remedy to the applicants. It also noted that between the two judgements a new investigation had been conducted into the operation at Katyr-Yurt but that “all the major flaws of the investigation indicated in 2005 persisted throughout the second set of proceedings.”173 The Court also concluded that “the respondent Government manifestly disregarded the specific findings of a binding judgement concerning the ineffectiveness of the investigation”.174 The Court went as far as suggesting that compliance procedures, as envisaged by Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights and necessitating involvement of the Committee of Ministers – may be required.175 In light of the cases of human rights violations reviewed in this report, and in light of the ECtHR’s decisions on cases from Ingushetia, it is clear that systematic failure to investigate such cases is no less relevant there as it is in Chechnya. As the Court concluded in a recent case from Ingushetia, Velkhiyev and Others v. Russia, the failure to identify specific individuals responsible for a crime – cited by the Russian authorities as the reason for suspending criminal investigation – “may only be attributed to the reluctance of the prosecuting authorities to pursue the investigation.”176 CONCLUSIONAttacks carried out by armed groups against state officials and civilians are a genuine threat to Ingushetia’s security, as they are to other republics in the Russian Federation’s North Caucasus region. It is the state’s legitimate objective and legal duty to prevent, counter and investigate such attacks, and bring their perpetrators to justice. However, the state’s response to this threat must not infringe human rights. The military-style actions and low-scale security operations which have been central to the Russian authorities’ response to these security challenges, including covert activities targeting the armed groups and their suspected members and supporters, have been fraught with numerous alleged human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture. Law enforcement officials have on numerous occasions overstepped the law and disregarded fundamental human rights, including the right to life and the prohibition of torture and unlawful detention, and done so with near-total impunity. Investigations into human rights violations amounting to serious crimes have been consistently ineffective in Ingushetia in all cases where the involvement of law enforcement officials was suspected, which is consistent with the trend observed in the wider North Caucasus. In response to victims’ complaints, the authorities typically refuse to acknowledge that there are serious grounds to suspect involvement of agents of the state, or even the commission of a crime at all, however compelling the evidence. Where criminal cases are opened in response to allegations of human rights violations, the ensuing investigation is invariably slow and ineffective, and results in the closure or suspension of the case. The relevant perpetrators are virtually never identified, let alone brought to justice. They are protected by the system which accepts uncritically denials of human rights violations by law enforcement officials, the secrecy which surrounds security operations, and the power to conceal identity of the units involved and individual participants in such operations. Official investigators may face genuine difficulties in resolving human rights violations in which members of powerful law enforcement agencies are involved. However, investigators often display little interest in establishing the truth. The number of alleged enforced disappearances in Ingushetia is growing each year and, according to some estimates, exceeds 200. Yet not one of these cases has ever been resolved, even those where at least some of the facts could have been easily established by an official investigation – such as the identity of the agency responsible for detaining an individual who from that moment went missing, as in the case of Israil Torshkhoev, for example. The victims of human rights violations committed by law enforcement officials in Ingushetia – those among the victims who have the courage and determination to seek legal remedies in spite of the pressure and intimidation to which they expose themselves by doing so – find themselves trapped in a circle of injustice. No two stories collected by Amnesty International during its research missions to Ingushetia are similar. But the denial of justice is common to all of them. The respect for the rule of law is weak throughout Russia, and virtually absent when it comes to combating security threats in the North Caucasus. This situation is neither sustainable, nor compatible with Russia’s human rights obligations. A commitment to eradicating abuses, punishing their perpetrators and providing victims with redress needs to be made now and at the highest levels of the Russian Federation. Download 433.94 Kb. Share with your friends:
|