Moscow, December 24: In a surprise ruling Wednesday, Russia’s Supreme Court agreed with the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights that a 2003 decision to arrest a business partner of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was illegal.
The ruling was not expected to lead to Platon Lebedev’s release, but it did signal a new willingness to come into line with the decisions of the European court, which found in 2007 that Lebedev’s rights had been violated during his arrest and pretrial detention. It was not immediately clear what the ruling’s specific implications would be.
The court decision coincided with a visit to Moscow by the Council of Europe’s secretary general, who discussed human rights issues with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.
Medvedev has cultivated the image of a liberal reformer and has consistently spoken out against corruption in Russia’s courts and in favor of pluralism and democratization. But his liberal rhetoric has not yet led to substantive changes.
Russia had ignored the Strasbourg, France-based court’s ruling on the Lebedev case for one and a half years before quickly moving to comply with it on Wednesday. The date for the hearing was set last week and the panel of nine judges deliberated for less than an hour.
Lebedev’s 2003 arrest and subsequent trial raised widespread criticism from human rights groups.
The speed of the decision led Lebedev’s lawyer, Vladimir Krasnov, to say outside the courtroom that fresh political pressure had likely prodded the Supreme Court to act on the case to try to project an image of concern for democratic values.
“After a year and half of silence on the European court’s ruling, all of a sudden they sprinted into action … as if some order had come down,” Krasnov said.
After his meeting with Medvedev, Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorborn Jagland said he had received assurances from him and other senior officials that Russia would renew discussions in January to adopt the European court’s 14th Protocol, which could oblige Russia to execute the decisions of the court instead of taking them as recommendations, as it generally does today.
“The ratification of Protocol 14 is very urgent,” Jagland said at a news conference after his meeting with Medvedev. “I did not hear any reservations…and I believe that we are talking about resuming the full ratification of Protocol 14.”
Jagland dismissed the notion that the Supreme Court’s decision was in any way connected to his visit, and declined to comment further on the case.
Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon and once Russia’s richest man, also was arrested in 2003. Both he and Lebedev are serving eight-year prison sentences after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion in a politically charged trial. They are now on trial for a second time.
The case against Khodorkovsky has been seen as punishment for challenging former President Vladimir Putin, and the new charges appear aimed at keeping him behind bars for years to come. Khodorkovsky did not join Lebedev in bringing a complaint to the human rights court.
The Strasbourg court ruled in 2007 that Russia violated Lebedev’s rights by keeping him in pretrial detention even after the detention period had expired; that both Lebedev and his lawyer were wrongly excluded from the detention hearing; and that two appeals proceedings were too slow.
In Wednesday’s ruling, Judge Pavel Serkov said it would overturn four minor rulings in the Lebedev case, including a court’s decision on July 3, 2003 to arrest Lebedev. He gave no further explanation of the ruling, and lawyers declined to comment on its implications until they saw the Supreme Court’s written decision.
Asked whether the ruling meant Lebedev would be freed, the prosecutor at Tuesday’s hearing, Viktor Grin, loudly answered, “No,” and rushed out of the courtroom without commenting further.
Krasnov said the government was trying to send a signal to Europe that Russia was upholding democratic values, but would not take concrete steps to make the courts more independent or to free Khodorkovsky or Lebedev.
“Yes, they recognized the European court’s decision so they don’t look bad. But does that mean anything will change? No it doesn’t,” Krasnov told the Associated Press outside the courtroom.
–Agencies