Ingush Supreme Court to Hear Appeal on Lower Court’s Approval of Yevkurov Border Law

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 15 – The Ingush Supreme Court today will hear an appeal by opposition deputies against an April 2 decision of the Magas District Court which approved the law former republic head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov pushed through to approve his September 2018 border deal with Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov.

            The Ingush Constitution specifies that any major decision like changing the republic’s borders must be subject to a referendum, but Yevkurov, knowing he couldn’t win such a vote without massive falsifications, forced the republic’s Popular Assembly to pass a law giving it the right to approve the measure, something it subsequently did.

            Opposition figures are challenging the law not only on constitutional grounds but procedural ones as well: They argue that fewer than eight of the 32 deputies voted for Yevkurov’s measure, far too few to approve it under the law (fortanga.org/2019/08/byt-s-narodom-priznaet-li-verhovnyj-sud-ingushetii-nezakonnym-soglashenie-evkurova-kadyrova/).

            The Supreme Court’s decision will have significant consequences. If it overturns the lower court, that will set the stage either for overturning the agreement or for a referendum; if it doesn’t, more opposition protests are almost certain with the Ingush people again demanding that the republic government live according to the constitution and laws.

            Meanwhile, there were two events in Moscow with Ingush implications. On the one hand, siloviki raided the office of the Legal Initiative, a group which since 2000 has helped track down those who have disappeared or suffered from torture in the North Caucasus, including in Ingushetia (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/339105/).

            And on the other, the biological mother is seeking to reclaim her daughter who was tortured apparently by her former husband’s sister with whom the girl had been living and has demanded that human rights groups pay for her travel to Moscow where her daughter remains in hospital after the amputation of her hand (capost.media/news/zdorove/mat-izbitoy-v-ingushetii-aishi-azhigovoy-potrebovala-oplatit-ey-bilety/).

                The case has attracted widespread attention in the Russian capital because of its horrific details and in the North Caucasus because traditional law there typically requires that in the event of a divorce, children be given to the husband or his relatives rather than remain with the mother.