MOSCOW, February 1 (RAPSI) – It is necessary that the Presidential Human Rights Council and Ombudsman participate in the development of proposals on the creation of a court of human rights in Russia, Council member Yevgeny Myslovsky believes.
On Monday, a list of instructions Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gave after a meeting of the Human Rights Council taking place on last December 10 was published on the President’s official website. In particular, the President instructed Russia’s Supreme Court to consider the issue if it would be feasible to establish the Russian court of human rights and, if necessary, to present the respective results by June 1.
According to Myslovsky, at the meeting he noted that an external watchman was necessary for Russian courts as currently they watch over themselves and there are no means to make them to correct their errors; the criminal process now is constructed in such a way that at the federal level only two officials in Russia, that is the Chairperson of the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor General, have the competence to raise the issues related to the correction of judicial errors; at the regional level this authority is vested in chairpersons of regional courts and regional prosecutors.
The national court of human rights, Myslovsky observes, could have been an independent body controlling the work of courts as concerns the protection of human rights; he is of the opinion that without participation of the Council and the Ombudsman the Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry will hardly have enough motivation to develop their proposals for creation of a body to watch over courts.