Access to justice

31/03/2021

All in the Same Boat?

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, it seemed that we were all equally vulnerable to the coronavirus, which did not discriminate by gender, ethnicity, social status or income. Politicians said that we were all in the same boat. It soon became apparent, however, that this was not entirely true.
23/11/2020

Echoes of Stalin’s “Great Terror.” How the descendants of repression continue to fight for their rights

Massive political repression in the USSR peaked in the late 1930s, but the descendants of the repressed are still fighting to restore the honest name of their ancestors and are trying to return home from their places of exile, to where their families were expelled decades ago.
09/11/2020

National Sovereignty or International Law? The Russian Constitution Has the Last Word

On January 2020, President Putin called for amending the Russian Constitution to establish its precedence over supranational judicial bodies, meaning, primarily, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Interestingly, this was not a new idea: Russian legal experts who for many years have been suggesting such an amendment to the Constitution had referred to German precedent.
23/07/2020

Extradition from the EU to Russia as a Pretext

What is the future of Russian citizens extradited from EU countries to their homeland? According to the European Convention on Human Rights and European human rights case law, a country attempting to extradite an accused person must assess the risks that the person may face. But do the European courts assess these risks correctly?
28/05/2020

The Right to a Fair Trial in the Context of COVID-19 in Russia

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 to be a pandemic. Most countries including Russia have taken measures to combat coronavirus, and some of these measures have also affected the judicial system. But are they consistent with the country's fair trial obligations under international law?
07/04/2020

Unemployment, Stigmatisation, and Social Control: What Convicted Women in the North Caucasus Face

We know little about the lives of convicted women in Russia as a whole, and even less about the lives of convicted women in the North Caucasus. Crime is considered a huge disgrace for families in the region, and so the difficulties faced by ex-convicts are not discussed.
15/03/2019

Expanding the Access of Legal Counsel to Prisoners in Russia

Roman Kachanov, executive director of the Interregional Human Rights Center (IHRC) in Yekaterinburg, speaks about his group’s legal victories, which have gradually removed some of the unlawful barriers preventing lawyers from gaining entry to correctional facilities and meeting with their clients.
09/11/2017

“Not everyone is able to pay a lawyer 600 euros for a 100 euro claim”

The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation (MoJ) has published a new draft of the Concept for the Regulation of the Professional Legal […]
28/04/2017

Life in Crimea: Political Repression, Militarisation, Lawlessness and Censorship

Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula has faced a difficult situation. Russian authorities have pursued a repressive policy against the locals: […]