11 May 2007, 23:23
Dzhabrailov: European Commission will improve qualification of judges in Chechnya
The Programme of the European Commission and the Council of Europe (CE) aimed to reduce the flow of complaints to the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) from Russia implies non-acceptance of the so-called insignificant cases caused by minor offences. Advocate Said-Abu Dzhabrailov, expert of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation, has explained this in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. He has noted that a great volume of applications filed in the Republics of North Caucasus, in particular in Chechnya, are related not only to gross violations of human rights, but also to non-payment of allowances, for example, and this forces people to apply to Strasbourg with claims for moral compensation.
As of today, the total number of cases that have arrived to the European Court from Russia is about 20,000. Out of them, 200 originate from the Chechen Republic.
Thus, annually the ECtHR spends about 12.5 million euros on consideration of 20,000 cases lodged by Russians against their own state. They make about a quarter (22%) of all the complaints arriving to Strasbourg. "We'd like most of the problems to be settled locally, at the national level, without reaching the ECtHR. To do so, we need to ensure faster and better jurisdiction," Hanna Juncher, head of the CE's Department for Cooperation in Human Rights, asserts.
The "Caucasian Knot" has already reported that in an attempt to reduce the number of claims from Russia, the ECtHR plans to spend 1.9 million euros on training programs for judges, prosecutors, militia officers, lawyers and human rights defenders from Russia.
Author: Alexandra Kondrasheva, CK correspondent
