Achievements of 2004
The human rights situation in Chechnya remained dire in 2004. Although large “mopping up” operations characteristic of federal force actions in previous years were less frequent, arbitrary detentions at the hands of Russian and Chechen security services remained common. Disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture also continued, as did the lack of accountability for those abuses.
Following up on its previous statements on the human rights situation in Chechnya, in its October 2004 Resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reiterated its previous statement that “a climate of impunity is prevailing in the Chechen Republic due to the fact that the Chechen and Federal law enforcement authorities are still unwilling or unable to hold accountable for their actions the vast majority of perpetrators of serious human rights violations.” In this environment, the contributions of the Chechnya Justice Project to ending impunity remain crucial.
Legal Developments and Casework
Caseload
By the end of 2004, the project had come to represent more than 700 victims and their family members in 95 cases. In 72 cases, the project has presented applications to the European Court of Human Rights. In 46 of these cases, full applications have been submitted to the European Court, and in the remaining cases preliminary applications have been sent. A total of 20 full and 21 preliminary applications were submitted in 2004 alone.
In an additional 23 cases, the project represents victims and their family members before Russian domestic judicial bodies as the cases are prepared for eventual submission to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR has informed the project that it represents more than 1/3 of all applicants before the Court from Chechnya.
Important progress in Chechnya Justice Project Cases
Fourteen of the project’s cases have now reached the first stage of advanced litigation before the ECHR, the communication stage. Communication is the second stage in the ECHR proceedings following the initial application on the part of the applicant. At the communication stage, the Court takes an initial review of the potential for admissibility of the case. Upon a positive review, the Court then informs the Russian government of the application and requests the government to comment on the admissibility and merits in the case. The government may then submit a memorandum, to which the applicants and their representatives may respond. Following the Court’s communication and the subsequent responses, the Court will take a decision on admissibility. If the Court determines the case admissible, then a final judgment will follow.
In seven cases, the project has responded to the government’s memoranda with its own memoranda on the admissibility and merits. Those cases are now pending admissibility decisions. In the remaining seven cases, the project is in the process of responding to the government’s memoranda. The project expects to receive communications in its cases steadily throughout the coming years, and anticipates the first admissibility decision in its cases in early 2005.
In October 2004, the European Court informed the project that it had taken a Rule 41 decision to grant priority in the Court’s review process to all of the cases from Chechnya. This measure suggests that review of the cases will proceed more rapidly than in recent years. For more information on the project’s communicated cases, see Cases below.
Legal Clinic
Another major development in the project’s legal work is a new drop-in legal clinic in its Ingushetia office. Open twice a week, the clinic offers a more structured mechanism for receiving the large number of victims of human rights abuses and their relatives who seek the project’s assistance. A new staff lawyer hired in Ingushetia in early 2004 helped to make the legal clinic possible. The lawyer, together with experienced project personnel, counsels victims and their relatives as to their basic rights and the domestic and international human rights protection mechanisms available to them. In some instances, the project will eventually represent these victims before domestic legal institutions and the European Court.
However, the project is not able to represent all of the victims who seek legal assistance, due to limits on the project’s own capacity or because the project deems that certain cases lack perspective for European Court litigation. Thus, the legal clinic allows the project to provide additional services to a population in need, by providing important information regarding rights and rights protection mechanisms and by helping victims and their relatives determine the best course of action given the circumstances of their case.
One important resource that the project offers victims and their relatives is its step-by-step instructional guide, Citizen’s Guide for Residents of the Republic of Chechnya: Defending your Rights on the Territory of the Russian Federation. This guide provides fundamental information about rights and legal mechanisms available and step-by-step instructions for victims and their family members about appealing to those mechanisms and gathering evidence necessary to proceed with domestic and international litigation. The project distributes this booklet to its clients, potential clients and applicants, and to visitors of the legal clinic. Again, through this publication, the project is able to assist and inform a wider audience of people as to their rights and rights protection mechanisms available to them. Over 150 copies of the guide were distributed in 2004. For more information, see Legal Research and Publications below.
Legal Director
The governing board and executive director took a decision in late 2004 to establish a new senior position within the project, that of legal director, and began the search process to identify qualified candidates. Support from the Global Conflict Prevention Program (a consortium of United Kingdom government agencies) made this new position possible. The new legal director will start in early 2005 and will report to and work closely with the executive director. He or she will have the responsibility of supervising the work of the staff lawyers, monitoring the progress of all cases, ensuring quality of all written submissions, supervising research projects, and developing new legal strategies. With the establishment of this new senior position, the executive director can concentrate more effectively on management, fundraising, finances, reporting, advocacy, and strategy.
Other cases from Chechnya before the ECHR
In October 2004, the European Court heard oral pleadings in the first six cases from Chechnya before the Court. Pleadings in the cases Khashiev v Russia, Akayeva v Russia, Isayeva v Russia, Yusupova v Russia and Isayeva v Russia were heard together, and a final judgment will be delivered in late February 2005. The applicants allege that their family members were killed by the actions of the Russian military in 1999 and 2000. The rulings in these cases will be significant for the Chechnya Justice Project’s cases pending before the ECHR, as the Court will make its first verdict on crucial issues such as exhaustion of domestic remedies in the unique context of the conflict in Chechnya.
Addressing Threats to Security
The project continued to face serious concerns over security, as clients reported additional incidents of harassment and intimidation. The project staff, board, and advisors regularly discuss security issues at their meetings, and the project has an emergency response strategy for reported threats to clients or staff. Partner organizations, including Memorial, the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, the Moscow Helsinki Group and others, as well as individuals representing victims before the European Court of Human Rights also continue to document this trend.
In the most serious of incidents, applicants before the European Court have been killed or subject to enforced disappearance. Other applicants, as well as applicants’ relatives, friends, associates or witnesses, have been followed, beaten, questioned, or threatened with reprisals. The threats may be made in conjunction with an individual’s application to the European Court or may be related to the victims’ and relatives’ attempts to pursue domestic avenues for redress.
In June 2004, the Chechnya Justice Project again marked the somber anniversary of the most serious incident involving one if its applicants, the disappearance of Said-Magomed Imakaev in June 2002. Said-Magomed and his wife are applicants to the Court regarding the disappearance of their son, Said-Hussein Imakaev, in 2000. The project currently awaits the Court’s admissibility decision in this case, Imakaeva v Russia.
For the Imakaev case and other cases, the project has sought protection for applicants by asking the European Court to initiate an accelerated review of the cases. The Court responded by prioritizing these cases and issuing communications to the government without delay. In the cases Akhmadova v Russia and Utsaeva v Russia, federal authorities repeatedly subjected the applicants to physical violence, property damage, and other harassment to the degree that the applicants and their relatives were forced to leave their homes and relocate to other parts of the Northern Caucasus.
The project continues to maintain close and frequent contact with all applicants in order to be fully informed of any threats or harassment as well as general case information. The project also led a team including colleagues from the European Human Rights Advocacy Center and the International Helsinki Federation’s Individual Rights Project, which wrote and published a document of model ethics, obligations, and security measures for legal representatives of victims from Chechnya. The authors then distributed this document among partner NGOs, participants at subsequent trainings, and to colleagues at the Council of Europe.
Legal Research and Publications
As the project encounters legal questions in Russian and European jurisprudence relevant to its litigation, the project commissions original research from prominent academic institutions. In some instances, graduate students conducting research internships in the project’s Moscow office have prepared reports. Through publication and web posting, the project makes this research accessible to other lawyers and human rights activists who work on similar issues.
Research Partners
In early 2004, students from the Amsterdam University International Law Clinic together with students of the Harvard University Advocates for Human Rights completed the report, “Victim’s Access to Criminal Investigations under Russian and European Law.” This research examined the provisions under Russian law regulating victims’ access to information about investigations, including files and case materials, and determined whether these provisions meet the standards established under European Court of Human Rights case law. In addition, the researchers presented a detailed comparative analysis of the standard for victim’s access to information about investigations in 12 European countries.
The project worked with several students from the Yale University Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic who examined the role of amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs in ECHR litigation and the relevance of amicus curiae briefs for the project’s applications before the European Court on behalf of victims from Chechnya.[2] In May 2004, the clinic produced the report, “Short Guide to Third-Party Intervention ‘Amicus’ Practice in the European Court of Human Rights.” The law students involved in the research extensively reviewed relevant documents and conducted interviews with numerous prominent ECHR experts. This was the first time in many years that an examination of third-party intervention in ECHR practice had been undertaken.
In-house Research
In early 2004, the Chechnya Justice Project published a practical citizen’s guide for its clients and others, titled Citizen’s Guide for Residents of the Republic of Chechnya: Defending your Rights on the Territory of the Russian Federation. The booklet provides fundamental information about rights and legal mechanisms available and step-by-step instructions for victims and their family members about appealing to those mechanisms and gathering evidence necessary to proceed with domestic and international litigation. Topics covered in the booklet include: collecting evidence in the case of illegal detention, execution, or torture, informing the authorities of the incident, and appealing decisions or actions of the procuracy in court. The appendix of the booklet includes samples of letters to the procuracy regarding various steps in the investigation process or to the court regarding an appeal. The project staff distributed more than 150 copies in 2004. The response of victims and their relatives, as well as lawyers working in the region, indicated that the guide is already in widespread use.
Together with the International Helsinki Federation’s Individual Rights in the Russian Federation and the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, the project authored an informational booklet, “Chechnya and the European Court of Human Rights: Ethics and Obligations,” which was published in September 2004. Colleagues from these projects decided to collaborate on this report in response to the serious problem of threats and harassment of applicants to the European Court of Human Rights from Chechnya, Ingushetia, and other regions. The booklet advises lawyers and human rights activists of necessary security measures when working with applicants from Chechnya. The materials also inform representatives of their obligations to inform potential applicants to Russian judicial bodies and the European Court of Human Rights of the potential risks of undertaking such a course of action.
In August 2004, a graduate intern from Columbia University in New York working in the project’s Moscow office researched and wrote a report on the ineffectiveness in Chechnya of the civil remedy of appealing the negligence of the prosecutor’s office in conducting investigations. In most instances, prosecutors in Chechnya launch criminal investigations into civilians’ complaints of serious abuses, but routinely suspend these investigations shortly afterwards without producing any concrete results. The only option available to victims in this scenario is to appeal the procuracy’s action or inaction before a civilian court. In the project’s experience, the local courts in Chechnya have been unwilling to hear these cases, and in most instances have refused to respond to the appeals. This report will be relevant for future project applications to the Court concerning the ineffectiveness of domestic remedies in violation of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In November and December 2004, a graduate intern from Norway working in the project’s Moscow office drafted a summary report on the administrative practice of failure to investigate and failure to prosecute crimes committed in Chechnya by federal forces. This report notes that in many cases against Turkey, the Court found that the state practiced or tolerated an administrative practice of non-investigation for crimes committed by government agents against the Kurdish population living in eastern Turkey. The project believes that a similar situation exists in Chechnya, and hopes that by presenting a clear, well-argued description of that practice, the Court will recognize the administrative practice in Chechnya. Thus, the project will use this document in future applications to the Court to demonstrate that an administrative practice exists that makes domestic remedies ineffective in violation of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The administrative practice argument is also relevant to arguments for admissibility of the case to the Court.
In examining linguistic components and narrative structure of certain conversations with victims, one staff member been able to pursue innovative topics related to her philology research. In February 2004, her report, “Chechnya: Sphere of Violence and its Coordinates (Oral Testimony)” was presented at the meeting of the Academic Center for Globalization and Comparative Studies at the Russian State Humanitarian University. This research further helps to expand the project’s influence in broader spheres of public interest.
Training
The project continues to prioritize the training of lawyers in the fields of Russian law, European law, international law, and the European Court of Human Rights. In 2004, the project’s staff had the opportunity to attend numerous trainings and seminars in Russia and in different cities in Europe. In addition, the project sponsored important trainings on European Court litigation.
In February, one of the staff lawyers attended the prestigious Winter School for Human Rights hosted by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw, Poland.
In mid-July, the Moscow representative office director attended a 10-day course on NGO management sponsored by the Moscow-based NGO School Foundation, in partnership with the British Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).
In March and again in early September, two staff members attended a seminar sponsored by the International Helsinki Federation’s Individual Rights in the Russian Federation project, which provided participants with practical work on gathering evidence and presenting arguments to the ECHR, and included a mock court exercise.
Also in early September, two staff lawyers attended a seminar sponsored by Memorial and the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, which included presentations on recent case law regarding specific articles of the European Convention and also provided practical exercises on legal drafting.
Following this training, four staff members attended a round-table discussion on recent changes to the structure and practice of the European Court of Human Rights given by experts on ECHR litigation. Other specialists presented a discussion on the past and future potential media and government response to cases brought against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights.
In October, the project sponsored six participants, including four staff members and two lawyers from Chechnya, to travel to Strasbourg France for a weeklong training program at the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. All six participated in meetings with representatives from the department of execution of decisions of the European Court, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the secretariat of the European Social Charter, the secretariat of the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the department for equality, the secretariat of the Venice Commission, and others. In addition, the study trip coincided with the oral hearings on the first six cases before the Court from Chechnya, Khashiev and others v Russia, which the staff was able to attend. This training program proved to be one of the most significant for the project to date, as staff members were able to witness the workings of the Court, learn about the Court and the Council of Europe directly, and interact with Court and Council of Europe officials.
In early November, two staff members from the Ingushetia office attended a peace-building conference in Nalchik, Russia, sponsored by one of the project’s partners, Secours Catholique (CARITAS-France). The staff then hosted members of the conference in its office to present the project’s work and provide an example of a sustainable local civil society project.
On December 14-15, the project’s Moscow office hosted an intensive seminar for the project’s staff and the staff of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre/Memorial. Altogether, 14 people participated. Maxim Ferschtman of the Dutch law firm Bohler Franken Koppe de Feijter Advocaten, and a former European Court of Human Rights lawyer, conducted the training.
On the first day, the participants refreshed and sharpened their skills in interviewing and gathering evidence by taking testimonies from “victims” in a hypothetical case, similar to that which participants frequently encounter in their daily work. On the basis of these interviews, they then developed a case to be presented to the ECHR, determined which articles of the European Convention on Human Rights should be cited and which additional evidence should be gathered. Finally, the participants discussed exhaustion of domestic remedies in the context of this case and more broadly.
On the second day, the participants focused on improving their understanding of and preparation for advanced stages of litigation before the ECHR. This work included examining the Court’s own practice directions which provide guidelines for the form and content for submissions as well as memoranda submitted by the Russian government and the responses produced by the Chechnya Justice Project and EHRAC.
By the end of the seminar, participants reached important conclusions regarding necessary steps in exhaustion of domestic remedies and content of advanced pleadings, which will be relevant for the project’s future applications and submissions to the European Court. Two important reference documents were produced for the seminar, “Collection of Evidence and Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies,” and “Elements in Government and Applicant’s Memoranda in Relation to Court Case Law.”
Advocacy
In February, the Moscow representative office director was invited to join the Russian Federation Ombudsman’s Commission on Chechnya. This working group meets regularly to present the Ombudsman with information on human rights abuses in Chechnya, request assistance with specific cases, and make recommendations for policy.
Also in February, the executive director reported to the International Helsinki Federation’s executive meeting held in Moscow. In November, the executive director attended a roundtable discussion on Chechnya during the International Helsinki Federation’s annual meeting also held this year in Moscow.
The executive director maintained regular contact with members of the diplomatic corps from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Through these meetings, the project is able to provide political officers and others with information about the problem of impunity in Chechnya and recent developments in the human rights situation in the Northern Caucasus. These members of the diplomatic corps can then use this information when making policy recommendations and in dialogue with Russian interlocutors.
Together with the European Human Rights Advocacy Center and Memorial, the project conducted targeted joint advocacy regarding harassment and threats against applicants through contact with Council of Europe officials. The two projects also prepared reports for the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions as well as for the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women. Similarly, the project provided assistance on the ground to the Special Rapporteur for violence against women during her trip to Russia in December 2004.
The project also provided assistance and information to Rudolph Bindig, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Rapporteur for Legal Affairs and Human Rights, during his trip to Russia and in the subsequent writing of his report of 20 September 2004 “The Human Rights Situation in the Chechen Republic.”
The executive director also traveled to the Council of Europe in October 2004 to attend the hearings on the first 6 cases from Chechnya and met with ECHR officials to discuss the progress of the project’s cases. She also met with Council of Europe officials to discuss the situation in the Northern Caucasus and the continuing climate of impunity for crimes committed by federal forces.
Cooperation
During the project period, the project worked closely with the European Human Rights Advocacy Center and the Human Rights Center Memorial to conduct advocacy with officials from international organizations (see above). These projects’ lawyers also met to discuss domestic and ECHR legal strategies and developments in the procuracy and judiciary in Ingushetia and Chechnya and participated in a joint training in December 2004.
Throughout 2004 the project maintained close contact with the Human Rights Center Memorial offices in Moscow, Nazran, Grozny and Urus-Martan in analyzing current trends in the human rights situation.
The project also met frequently with colleagues from Human Rights Watch, Moscow Helsinki Group, the European Human Rights Advocacy Center and the International Helsinki Federation Individual Rights Project. A frequent topic of discussion was security issues in the Northern Caucasus and ways of managing increased pressure from government agencies on the activities and institutions of human rights advocates, particularly on those living and working in the region.
Together with the International Helsinki Federation and the European Human Rights Advocacy Center, the project wrote and published an informational booklet, “Chechnya and the European Court of Human Rights: Ethics and Obligations.”
The project provided assistance to Amnesty International during its 2004 research trips to Moscow and Ingushetia and in preparation of the reports, “Chechen Republic: Normalization in Whose Eyes?” and “The Risk of Speaking Out. Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in the Context of the Armed Conflict in Chechnya.”
Other important partner organizations include Secours Catholique, Federation International des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH), Pax Christi Netherlands, the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Swedish Helsinki Committee and the Chechnya Advocacy Network (CAN).
Project plan for 2005 >> |
