MOSCOW, Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law giving the Constitutional Court the right to call rulings handed down by international courts unenforceable if the decision violates the Russian Constitution. In effect, the Russians have said that their constitution takes precedence over international rulings.
The new legislation was published on the country’s official judicial portal. It was adopted by the State Duma on December 4, 2015, and approved by Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, on December 9, 2015.
The law was adopted in response to the Constitutional Court’s July 2015 decision, which stated that judgments of the ECHR cannot be implemented if they contradict Russia’s constitution.
In July 2014, the ECHR ordered Russia to pay 1.87 billion euros in compensation to shareholders of now defunct Yukos oil company, formerly owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was arrested in 2003 and spent a decade in prison on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. The ECHR ruling prompted France and Belgium to freeze some assets of the Russian state, although they were later unblocked.
The Russian Justice Ministry said it would not follow the Strasbourg court ruling because compliance would put the ministry in breach of Russia’s constitution.
Credit: Sputnik / PressTV
