The International Protection Centre was established on 24 December 1994. The organization unites professional lawyers specializing in human rights protection, civil society activists and human rights defenders. Some of the Centre’s most tragic cases have been those involving violations of the right to life, including those of the Nord-Ost hostages and that of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the International Protection Centre stated in a press release. Kavkazsky uzel has published a background report, Anna Politkovskaya’s Murder.
The creation 30 years ago of the International Protection Centre [also known in English as ‘Centre for the Promotion of International Defence’ -ed.] was an important event in the development of human rights defence in Russia. The Centre itself won hundreds of cases at the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights], defending people whose rights had been violated.
As Kavkazsky uzel has reported, associates of the International Protection Centre have taken part in the legal defence of activists from Russia’s southern regions many times—including the defence of those charged in the “Ingush affair”.
In the years 1991-1996, the Russian regime actively promoted the country’s membership in the Council of Europe. And beginning on 1 October 1991, the Soviet regime concluded several international agreements in the area of human rights. Thus, the state entered into agreements on UN treaty bodies—in particular, the Human Rights Committee, a quasi-legal organ competent to hear individual appeals on human rights violations. Thanks to ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Russians, as of 1 January 1992, acquired access to the legal body on human rights and gained the right, assuming specific criteria were met, to submit complaints with decisions rendered that were binding on the country’s authorities, Karina Moskalenko, founder of the International Protection Centre, recounted.
Karina Moskalenko, founder of the International Protection Centre
Having failed in 1994, Russia was finally accepted into the Council of Europe in 1996. And so, for the first time, Russians gained the opportunity to defend their rights in international legal and quasilegal bodies, she noted.
During those same 1990s, a few Russian lawyers were given the opportunity to participate in several educational programs at European and other universities on international public law—especially in the area of human rights, Moskalenko recalled.
“Being engaged in prosecuting human rights cases, I was among those who thirsted for theoretical knowledge and practical expertise at working with complaints to those mechanisms I considered to be ‘courts of hope, organs of justice’. To do this, I had to study English, moreover professional legal English specifically. I had to study volumes of legal literature in what was for us a new field of law and dozens, later hundreds, of decisions of these organs. In December 1994, after completing a course in international European law at Birmingham University and training at a London organisation specializing in prosecuting complaints in the European court, I invited lawyer colleagues to meet, and after more than a week’s discussion of the future organisation’s details, we decided to create the International Protection Centre”, Moskalenko told the Kavkazsky uzel correspondent.
According to her, they won their first cases at the UN Human Rights Committee.
“While waiting for the jurisdiction of the European Court, we prosecuted a few first cases at the UNHCR. After the mid-1990s, Russians were in a state of profound disenchantment with the Russian legal system. In the latter half of the 1990s, judicial reform had stalled, judges were not ensuring the adversarial nature of trials, and they had started to feel themselves independent of the law and legal procedure and once again stopped issuing acquittals, which there were, especially in jury trials, and the brakes were being applied in every possible way to holding jury trials,” the human rights activist explained.
In her opinion, the courts had once again ceased to listen to the opinion of the defence, were not ensuring adversariality and equality of the sides in trials and had begun to ignore the principle of the presumption of innocence.
“The demand for appealing to supra-state bodies became insistent. And the first cases reflected Russia’s main systemic legal problems,” Moskalenko added.
She listed several cases at the UNHCR. Lantsova vs. Russia — the case of a mother whose son had died in a remand centre due to extremely poor conditions of custody and the refusal to render him medical assistance. Grindin vs. Russia — the case of a violation of the right to fair trial and a violation of the presumption of innocence. Smirnova vs. Russia— the case of a violation of the right to liberty and personal inviolability.
“The first cases we took to the European Court were also devoted to violations of those same rights mentioned above. One of these cases was Kalashnikov vs. Russia, famous because it was the first Russian case examined in a public hearing of the European Court. And based on the results of its hearing, a decision was taken that became a precedent. Among the Centre’s first cases were several “Chechen” cases on violations of the right to life, torture, and illegal arrests”, Moskalenko said.
Later, their attention was turned to issues of freedom of speech, association, and assembly. “The violation of voting rights, the violation of lawyers’ rights, the ‘spy cases’, and many others. Most important were the cases on political persecutions and political murders”, Karina Moskalenko noted.
According to her information, more than 900 cases were won and around 1000 cases registered—they are still awaiting review.
After Russia’s exit from the Council of Europe, the Centre and its attorneys kept up their work in international defence, the head of the International Protection Centre said.
“While submitting our remaining cases to the ECtHR, we are now specializing even more in submitting complaints to the UNHCR. Some of our complaints have already been heard, some communicated. And some are still awaiting the issuance of a decision. Thus, in the case of the former president of the Udmurtia bar, Dmitry Talantov, who was imprisoned for his views, we, after our appeal to the UNHCR, not only obtained passage of interim measures to save his life and health but also obtained immediate communication of the complaint, which was already complete, and we are now awaiting a decision”, Moskalenko emphasized.
She asserts that lawyers from the International Protection Centre are not inclined to work using political methods.
“We have a much more effective weapon—legal mechanisms. Some might say, ‘They don’t work’. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act, defend, support our clients, formalize violations, and express our disagreement with them. These are purely legal methods of work—and in the most politicized cases we have an entire arsenal of legal, rather than political, methods of work”, the human rights activist explained.
In her opinion, there are limits to the degree of transparency appropriate in this kind of work. “We are lawyers, and the confidentiality that is the chief principle of our relationship with clients demands definite restraint. We cannot reveal information on cases, especially current cases, and especially in our complicated and, as many believe, villainous times”, Moskalenko concluded.
The International Protection Centre has played an essential role in spreading and promoting mechanisms of international defence in the legal and human rights community, noted Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the Civic Assistance Committee.
“We consulted with Karina Moskalenko, Anna Stavitskaya, and other lawyers from the Centre, invited them to our seminars, and tried to use the methods they had developed”, she told the Kavkazsky uzel correspondent.
Gannushkina believes that every lawyer should be proficient in using these methods. “Thus, ECtHR Rule 39 calling for an immediate ban on surrendering a refugee to the country of their departure was applied for the first time by Anna Stavitskaya. Since then, our lawyers have used this mechanism hundreds of times and with it saved hundreds of people from illegal prosecution and incarceration. Yes, this was a breakthrough, but its value rests in the fact that it became part of lawyers’ daily work. And not only lawyers’. I have had several cases won at the ECtHR because the logic of the defence was already built in. Thanks to the Centre, we ceased to fear communication with the European Court. Its loss for us today cannot be overstated”, Gannushkina summed up.
Sergei Davidis, director of the project ‘Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial,’ pointed out the importance of their interaction with the International Protection Centre on the international defence of political prisoners and other victims of repressions.
“In particular, this kind of collaboration with the Centre was very significant in the defence of the rights of Muslims convicted on charges connected with Hizb-ut-Tahrir”, he told the Kavkazsky uzel correspondent.
More important, though, has been the Centre’s role in training lawyers and spreading human rights approaches and principles in the lawyer community, Davidis noted. “This activity of the Centre has played an exceptionally important role in the development of the Russian legal profession and has helped us greatly in our work in defence of political prisoners,” he emphasized.
Translated by Marian Schwartz / rightsinrussia.org
Source: Kavkazsky uzel