Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 1 – Citizens of the
Russian Federation who have failed to obtain justice in Russian courts have frequently
appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. That has so
embarrassed the Kremlin that its operatives appear to have taken what would be
illicit steps to discourage the members of one repressed people from pursuing
such cases.
These cases are those filed by
residents of Kalmykia, a Buddhist people who live in a republic adjoining the
North Caucasus. Last month, Interfax reported that more than 2700 Kalmyks,
having exhausted their appeals in Russian courts had turned to Strasbourg but
that 108 of them had been rejected by the European court.
Moscow officials spread this news
through Moscow and republic media, and Kalmykia head Aleksey Orlov even
suggested, as the central government clearly hopes, that “all the remaining
complaints will be rejected.” But one
activist suggests the Kremlin may have taken further illegitimate steps in
orchestrating the rejections that have been received.
In his blog and then on the pages of
two larger outlets, Valery Badmayev, the chief editor of the independent
“Sovremennaya Kalmykia” and an expert advisor to the For Human Rights movement,
described what he says appears to be blatant Moscow interference in the
judicial process (vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/2862 and echo.msk.ru/blog/valbad/1032846-echo/).
Last summer, he writes, residents of
Kalmykia with the status of victims of political repressions (who total “about
30,000”) filed suit in Russian courts against the Russian finance ministry
seeking compensation for their moral losses during their exile in Siberia in
Stalin’s time.
They did so, Badmayev says, in
response to an article he wrote that pointed out that two citizens of Georgia
had been successful in getting the European court to order the government of
their country to pay compensation for similar losses. But challenging the Russian government, he
suggests, is a far more difficult task.
Having been involved in the
preparation of almost 1300 Kalmyk appeals to the Strasbourg court, Badmayev
says, he recently received copies of two refusals. The latter raise some
serious questions. Not only are the
signatures of the same individual different on the two documents, but he
describes himself as having a position which does not exist at the court.
Badmayev says that he is “convinced”
that these refusals from Strasbourg signed by an unknown person and the media
campaign against making appeals to that court in the Russian government-controlled
media are “inter-related events” and that “all this was approved in the
Kremlin.
The Russian leadership has its
reasons, the Kalmyk editor continues. Not only do such appeals undermine its
“political reputation” but, because there are approximately two million victims
of Soviet-era repressions still alive, such cases could ultimately force Moscow
to pay “enormous” sums to them.
Badmayev says that he and his
colleagues are preparing a letter to the chairman of the European Court of
Human Rights and to the Council of Europe asking them to investigate “the
doubtful refusals apparently signed by an individual of the name Ryngelevich,”
since judges rather than bureaucrats are supposed to sign such decisions.
While a few repression victims may
be taken in, the editor and rights activist continues, he has been pleased that
some of those who have heard about these “rejections” are nonetheless pressing
their appeals to Strasbourg. Two Kalmyk women in particular have told him that
the rejections are the work of the Russian authorities and should be ignored.
Even if it should turn out that the
rejection letters are genuine, Badmayev continues, there is another reason for
the victims to press their cases at Strasbourg. In the European court, cases
are considered individually and it is not the case that “all our complaints
will fall into the hands” of those who may be prepared to do what Moscow wants.
And “there is the hope that part of the
complaints all the same will be considered not by a single judge but by a whole
group of judges.” If that happens, then the court’s finding in the case of the
two Georgians will have precedential value for Kalmyks who continue their “real
struggle for the return of national dignity to the Kalmyk people.”
The Kalmyks, like many other peoples,
had high hopes when Moscow in 1991 dopted two laws on the rehabilitation of
victims of political repressions and of repressed peoples, but those hopes were
largely dashed because the center did not enforce them and then in 1992, Russian
President Boris Yeltsin limited them in order to prevent the collapse of the
country.
Part of the reason for Moscow’s approach
in the 1990s was financial, Badmayev says, but now, under President Vladimir
Putin, the Russian government has plenty of money from petro-dollars, but
instead of doing so, he has orchestrated the removal of the words about
compensation for moral damages from the earlier laws.
In this way, “the former KGB officer”
and those who do his bidding in the Duma “acted in the ‘best’ traditions of the
Cheka and the NKVD.” Almost all regional leaders loyally followed without
objection, but this all meant “to speak crudely” that Moscow was “spitting on
our dignity and we have put up with it” until now.
But those who are conducting this
campaign against appeals to the Strasbourg court are “very much mistaken” if
they think that everyone in the Russian Federation will act like “truly Soivet
people who in their mass simply are afraid of the courts, fear the bosses and
agree with the party leaders in everything, even if these leaders exile them to
hard labor or start a war.”
Today, people are increasingly willing
to “defend their rights independently of wehther the powers want to respect
these rights or not.” Some say that those doing so in Strasbourg are only
seeking money, but in fact, Badmayev says, “we are showing the authorities that
we are not slaves.”
Recently, he relates, an 80-year-old
Kalmyk told him that she had begun to learn Russian while on the train
deporting her to Siberia. The very
first Russian words she learned, the woman said, were “Are there any corpses?”
words used by NKVD guards each morning to find out whether children or old
people had died and should be “thrown out of the wagons.”
And there is yet another curiously
Russian twist to all of this, Badmayev says.
As of January 1, 2005, the Russian government has transferred
responsibility for financing social welfare from itself to the regions. If it
follows the same logic regarding compensation for moral losses, then the Kalmyk
authorities will have to pay it, not Moscow.
Moscow routinely insists that it is the
legal successor of the USSR and that means it must take this responsibility on
its own shoulders, as he and other rights activists have frequently pointed out.
Unfortunately, their views “do not have any significance for the Russian
authorities.”
According to Badmayev, “formerly
repressed peoples from other regions of Russia support the initiative of the
residents of Kalmykia,” something he says he is very pleased about and
something he would like to promote by “establishing contact with all [those
across the Russian Federation] who stand with them.”
While the European Court cannot
compel governments to fulfill its decisions, those decisions do matter, and
sometimes those appealing to them can obtain real redress. On Friday, Vienna’s
“Die Presse” reported that the court had ruled that Austria must grant asylum
to a Chechen refugee (diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/1382047/Verletzung-von-Folterverbot_EGMR-ruegt-Oesterreich?from=suche.intern.portal).
Each such decision not only
strengthens the influence of the court and increases the interest of the
citizens on the continent to make use of its good offices but also makes it
more likely that governments, including that of the Russian Federation, will
conclude it is better to carry out the court’s orders or better yet to behave
in ways so that their citizens won’t have to make such appeals.
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