European Court of Human Rights Asks Russia to Honor Its Judgments

The European Court has continued delivering judgments concerning Russia, and the Committee of Ministers continues to supervise their implementation.

The Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee of Ministers has reiterated the Russian Federation’s unconditional legal obligation to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and to pay ‘just satisfaction’ awarded by the Court.

The President of the Committee of Ministers made a statement on this issue, and the Council of Europe Secretary General sent a further letter to the Russian Foreign Minister, following the Committee’s latest quarterly meeting on the execution of judgments from the European Court.

According to a statement issued by CoE on June 8, four groups of Russian cases and two Georgia v. Russia interstate cases were examined by the Committee at the meeting. These cases concerned violations found in the Transdniestrian region of the Republic of Moldova and inadequate preparation of hostage-rescue operations resulting in loss of life and injuries in both the Dubrovka Theatre and in the hostage-taking crisis in Beslan in 2004, as well as criminal convictions based on an unfair trial and an arbitrary application of criminal law in cases concerning Aleksey Navalnyy.

Following the examination of the Georgia v. Russia (I) case, which concerns the arrest, detention and expulsion from the Russian Federation of large numbers of Georgian nationals in 2006-2007, the President of the Committee of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, said, “The Russian authorities must heed the Committee’s call and comply with their unconditional obligations under international law to pay these sums and fully abide by the judgments of the European Court.”

“The default interest on the amount awarded by the Court in Georgia v. Russia (I) continues to accrue and on 5 June 2023, the total amount owed by the Russian Federation in this case was EUR 11,525,068.49. Russia’s delay in fulfilling this obligation deprives the individual victims of the violations from receiving compensation for the damages they suffered,” he stressed.

At the request of the Committee of Ministers, and now also reflecting the recent judgment of the European Court awarding just satisfaction in the case of Georgia v Russia (II), a Register of just satisfaction concerning the Russian Federation has been created, which shows the millions of euros owed by the Russian Federation in all inter-state cases.

There are currently a total of 2,454 cases under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers, pending full implementation by the Russian authorities. According to CoE, information is currently awaited on the payment of just satisfaction in some 1,200 cases. As of 5 June 2023, the outstanding amount stood at slightly over 2.2 billion euros, including roughly 1.87 billion euros in the case of OAO Neftyanaya Kompaniya Yukos.

The Russian Federation was excluded from the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022. However, Russia is still obliged to implement judgments of the European Court related to its actions and omissions up until 16 September 2022. The European Court has continued delivering judgments concerning Russia, and the Committee of Ministers continues to supervise their implementation.

Courtesy: CoE

Kejriwal Holds Public Rally to Legitimize Corruption in Delhi

Kejriwal is trying to woo gullible people of Delhi so that he could gain legitimacy for his party’s acts of corruption.

Delhi chief minister (CM) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal held an extravagant event in Delhi on June 11 to mobilize public support against a government ordinance that has divested his government of administrative powers.

In a tweet, AAP said that the people of Delhi are attending the rally to oppose the dictatorship of the Central government headed by prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi, adding that the ordinance must be taken back.

Recently, the Modi government has taken another step to stop the misuse of authority and corruption by Kejriwal and his AAP colleagues. In order to oppose a Supreme Court order of May 11 that gave Delhi bureaucracy control to the Kejriwal government, the Modi government promulgated an ordinance on May 19 to create a National Capital Civil Service Authority.

The new Authority will have the power to recommend the transfers and postings of bureaucrats including all Group A officers and officers of DANICS (Delhi, Andaman &

Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli Civil Services) serving in Delhi.

Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister, Delhi

While the overall control of administration will stay with Delhi Lt. Governor (LG) Vinai Saxena, Kejriwal and his ministers will continue to be dummy officials in the government without any direct role.

In order to oppose the Modi government’s ordinance, Kejriwal is also meeting various political leaders in other states. However, few are expected to support Kejriwal who is perceived to be the most corrupt politician in Indian politics.

In a tweet written in Hindi, Kejriwal said on May 23 that he will travel in the entire country to seek support from other political leaders so that the ordinance does not become a law in the Rajya Sabha where opposition parties have sufficient strength.

Since the ordinance has been introduced mainly to stop corruption by Kejriwal and other AAP leaders, no honest leader will support Kejriwal. Along with Kejriwal, a number of AAP politicians are either facing investigations or languishing in jail for their alleged involvement in massive corruption and money laundering cases.

As most political leaders are aware of Kejriwal’s corruption cases, they will not stand with “corrupt Kejriwal.” Only those leaders will collaborate with Kejriwal in opposing the ordinance who themselves are corrupt and fear investigations by the central agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The main opposition party Congress, for example, has decided to stay away from Kejriwal and his “corrupt” colleagues. A Delhi Congress leader Ajay Maken wrote a long Twitter post on May 23 to explain why Congress should not oppose the ordinance.

He said that there are administrative, political, and legal reasons for not supporting Kejriwal when he is demanding undue control in Delhi. The Supreme Court order that Kejriwal is citing is totally ambiguous, as most court orders in India are not very clear and usually written in broken (or wrong) English.

Since most Supreme Court judges also lack domain knowledge, they take casual decisions which cannot be challenged. The situation is worse in the high courts and lower courts of India.

If you evaluate the Supreme Court judgments through an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based expert system, you will find that almost all the judgments or delays are either wrong or biased.

It is once again visible in the standalone decision – without considering various aspects – that the Supreme Court took in favour of the Kejriwal government. In fact, Kejriwal is trying to grab more powers so that in a revengeful manner he could punish the bureaucrats who are investigating AAP corruption cases. The development work in Delhi is completely hampered because of corruption in the

Kejriwal government. Today, Delhi has become the world’s most polluted national capital and corruption is rampant in almost all departments of Delhi Government.

In fact, a couple of ministers in the Kejriwal government – Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain – have been jailed under charges of massive corruption and money laundering.

Also, Kejriwal and a slew of other AAP leaders are facing investigations while Delhi LG Saxena has ordered a probe into the reported Rs. 45 crore misappropriation of public funds by Kejriwal on the renovation of his house.

Similarly, the standard of education is pathetic in Delhi schools and the Mohalla Clinics that Kejriwal praises are in a deplorable state. There is a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity, and transport in Delhi.

While the city is littered with stinking household waste, it has become a colossal dustbin as swarms of mosquitoes breed in homes making life miserable for Delhi residents.

Now the people of Delhi are facing a serious mosquito threat as the mosquito density in the city has increased manifold. The Delhi homes are full of mosquitoes and many people may be dying with mosquito bites. But the negligent Delhi Government has failed to deal with the mosquito menace in the city.

Meanwhile, a new global report (Ecological Threat Report 2022: Analysing Ecological Threats, Resilience & Peace) has warned of an imminent ecological disaster in Delhi.

The report says factors such as poor infrastructure, lethal air pollution, weak regulatory framework, and administrative failure are going to make Delhi unsustainable for its population of over 30 million. Thus, Delhi continues to be a living hell for millions of people who live here and now the ambiguous Supreme Court order in favour of the Kejriwal government has caused more confusion. So, the people of Delhi should not expect any relief.

Like most other crooked politicians, Kejriwal and AAP spend hundreds of crores of rupees on fake advertisements to falsely show their work. Thus, they hoodwink voters - most of whom are illiterate - to win elections deceptively.

Moreover, Kejriwal is also paying crores of rupees of public money to some greedy lawyers who try to protect him and other AAP leaders unscrupulously in courts. Since Kejriwal is not supposed to spend public money to litigate AAP corruption cases, it is a form of corruption that Kejriwal commits in collusion with dishonest lawyers.

As Kejriwal is unlikely to get administrative control in Delhi – which is not a full state – he should remove his junior party colleague Bhagwant Mann from the CM position in Punjab and become the CM of Punjab. Since Bhagwant Mann is an illiterate and incapable politician, he is not able to handle the growing unrest in Punjab.

Now, with the public rally, Kejriwal is trying to woo gullible people of Delhi so that he could gain legitimacy for his party’s acts of corruption. But it will be a travesty of justice if Kejriwal is given any administrative control in Delhi.

Rather, all corrupt AAP politicians should be jailed immediately so that people of Delhi could live in a corruption-free environment.

Volker Türk Must Release Data on Human Rights Work

It is essential for the UN Human Rights office to release data about the effectiveness of its work so that its performance could be measured empirically.

On June 8, 2023, a United Nations (UN) human rights expert urged Russia to drop criminal charges against Oleg Orlov, a human rights defender and one of the leaders of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization “Memorial”.

Earlier, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, asked Iran to stop illegal executions of protesters. He also expressed concern at persecution of judicial officials in Guatemala, besides expressing his dismay at death sentences by military courts in Myanmar.

These are among the multiple examples of casual statements issued carelessly by Türk, UN Human Rights office, and the so-called UN human rights experts. In addition to these meaningless statements, the UN Human Rights office releases myriad reports on human rights situations, conducts visits in different countries, and holds extravagant events in different parts of the world.

Shockingly, however, the UN Human Rights office never releases information on the impact of its ostentatious activities on the people who are being harassed everywhere.

For example, the UN Human Rights office never informs if the authoritarian regimes have accepted its statements and appeals to protect the human rights of persecuted communities. Thus, the UN office is working in an opaque manner and squandering huge money on the comforts of its bureaucrats including Türk.

In May 2023, Türk even announced to double the office budget so that a UN Human Rights office could be established everywhere. While Türk is already wasting massive money to run the bureaucratic outfit, he did not elaborate how he would measure the impact of his work.

Although the entire UN system has gone defunct, the UN Human Rights office is the most notorious department that has repeatedly failed to discharge its responsibilities.

It has been seen that all UN Human Rights chiefs only perform some perfunctory jobs, but they never protect human rights of people who are being persecuted in different parts of the world.

In particular, Türk has deliberately turned a blind eye to the human rights violations happening right under his nose. Since Türk is an unqualified bureaucrat, in April 2023 I had urged him to resign from his position. But he has not yet resigned because he wants to enjoy the luxuries that come with his job.

I have argued in my appeal that the UN human rights system cannot save the rights or lives of the victims of violations and other crimes perpetrated by cruel authorities in different countries such as Belarus, China, India, Israel, Myanmar, Russia, Syria, and countless other despotic nations.

Since no key result area (KRA) has been defined for Türk and other officials in his office, they never release data of the people who get relief from their work. Actually, they are not doing any effective work except releasing statements in rigid templates.

As blatant human rights violations are happening, the autocratic authorities are arbitrarily incarcerating or killing human rights defenders and peaceful protesters who raise their voice against the state crimes in their countries.

The UN Human Rights office under Türk has been issuing useless statements, but it could not get jailed dissenters released. They include Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza in Russia, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski in Belarus, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, and thousands of other peaceful protesters who are languishing in jails of different autocratic nations.

The Special Rapporteurs - who are part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council - are also some naive functionaries who do not fully understand the human rights work.

Like UN Human Rights chiefs, they also keep releasing irrelevant statements and reports mechanically without knowing the effect of their redundant activities.

In these circumstances, it is essential for the UN Human Rights office to release data about the effectiveness of its work so that its performance could be measured empirically.

The data should have one-to-one correspondence with each appeal to an authoritarian regime that the UN Human Rights office makes and the outcome of the appeal in terms of relief to the oppressed people.

The UN Human Rights office should make a dedicated web compendium on which the casewise information about its work and its measurable impact should be publicly available.

Moreover, the UN Human Rights office should make a simple online system on which the aggrieved people whose rights are being violated could file their complaints and these complaints should openly appear on the system.

If the UN Human Rights office cannot take these reformatory steps and cannot reveal the impact of its work explicitly, it has no right to exist. In that case, the UN Human Rights office should be shuttered immediately. |

By Rakesh Raman