The Supreme Court of Russia is drafting a constitutional law, according to which it will have the right to examine complaints of citizens filed against the State. Until now only the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has enjoyed this right. If this new law appears, Russian citizens will get the opportunity to save means and efforts by applying to the Supreme Court, as Vladimir Davydov, one of the reporters from the presidium of the Supreme Court, observed at the committee meeting of the Public Chamber.

    As you know, theEuropean Courtexamines cases concerning failure of a State to comply with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. The European Court is unable to reverse a sentence passed by a domestic court; however it has the right to award compensation if it establishes a violation of human rights. Most of the applications to the Court in Strasbourg are connected with non-execution of decisions passed by domestic courts or everlasting trials.

    Every year theEuropean Courtreceives about 20 thousand applications from Russia what makes up to one third of the total. The Court is unable to cope with that amount of applications submitted from Russia. During the last year it passed about one hundred decisions in favor of the applicants what is a tiny little part. It is evident that not only Russian citizens but also the Court in Strasbourg is interested in the opportunity when at least some part of the applications will be examined by Russian courts. 

    Representative of the Russian Federation in the European Court of Human Rights Veronika Milinchuk said that she supported the decision. “If the Supreme Court of Russia received certain jurisdiction, the European Court would welcome this decision, because it would decrease the  workload on the Court in Strasbourg and it would be more convenient for citizens who would not need to expect the examination of their applications for two or three years”, believes Ms. Milinchuk.

Sourcehttp://www.km.ru/