Justice Ministry calls ECHR request to release Navalny unenforceable

The request of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to release the founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK, included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent) Alexei Navalny from prison as an interim measure is obviously impracticable. The statement of the head of the Russian Ministry of Justice, Konstantin Chuychenko, is reported by TASS.

According to him, the demand received from the ECHR is unprecedented for several reasons. Among them are “obvious and gross interference in the activities of the judiciary of a sovereign state.” Chuichenko also considered the request of the ECHR unreasonable and unlawful, “since it does not contain an indication of any fact or rule of law that would allow the court to make such a decision.”

The head of the Ministry of Justice explained that the request is obviously impracticable, because, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, there are no legal grounds for releasing Navalny from custody. “Realizing all this, the European judges have made a clearly political decision that can only complicate the restoration of constructive relations with the institutions of the Council of Europe,” he added.

Earlier, the ECHR asked the Russian government to release Navalny from prison as an interim measure. The appeal was filed on January 20, even before the replacement of the suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case with a real one. It was formulated on the basis of Rule 39 of the ECHR Rules.

The Ministry of Justice has already noted that it is impossible to release Navalny as part of interim measures at the request of the European Union, since this would be gross interference in the work of the judicial system of a sovereign state. The department also called the adoption of such a decision a certain transition for the “red line”.

In 2014, Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months of suspended imprisonment with a fine of 500 thousand rubles for fraud. The court later extended the trial period for a year. In 2017, the ECHR, at the request of the Navalny brothers, decided that Russia had violated a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to them in the Yves Rocher case. In 2018, the Supreme Court of Russia resumed the proceedings due to the decision of the ECHR, but upheld the verdict.

Сообщение Justice Ministry calls ECHR request to release Navalny unenforceable появились сначала на supercar.ru.