MOSCOW, RUSSIA. DECEMBER 21. First deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev (L) and Rene van der Linden, president of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) during their meeinting at Moscow's White House.
Photo: ITAR-TÀSS
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In Parliamentary Tone
// Russia’s Renewed Delegation Going to the PACE Session
Russia’s Renewed Delegation to the PACE will stick to the same policy
Today a spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) opens in Strasbourg, the first one for some of the members of the Russian delegation. Kommersant has the list of the fifth Duma’s representatives in the PACE. Gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, political analyst Sergey Markov, Svetlana Goryacheva and Alexander Babakov are on that list together with more experienced delegates. According to the information of Kommersant, the new delegation will have to undergo a serious trial: the resentment towards Moscow blocking the work of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) grows, and it has even been discussed that Russia’s representatives must be deprived of the right to vote.
The new team
Today’s session of the PACE begins with the confirmation of the rights of the Russian delegation. Some of its former members, Natalya Narochnitskaya, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Nikolay Kovalev and Gadzhi Mahachev, will not be present at the current session. Their places will be taken by the Vice-president of the Duma’s Committee on Affairs of Youth, Svetlana Khorkina, the Vice-president of the Duma’s Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations, Sergey Markov, Vice-president of the Duma’s Committee on Agenda, Svetlana Goryacheva, the Duma Deputy Speaker, Alexander Babakov, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ivan Savvidi, the Chairman of the Committee on Property, Victor Pleskachevskiy, and the Chairman of the Committee on Local Government, Vyacheslav Timchenko. The new list of Russia’s representatives includes the former delegate Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who actually rarely came to Strasbourg. The head of the delegation, as it used to be, is Konstantin Kosachev, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman.
First the new delegation will have to listen to the PACE report on the March presidential election in Russia. The PACE was the only international organization to send its observers since the rest (the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, NATO and the Council of the North) refused to do it. That is why the PACE report even criticizing Russia, but acknowledging at the same time that it reflects the will of the voters, is regarded in Moscow as its achievement. The interlocutors of Kommersant within the Russian delegation said that this document wouldn’t rouse censure with them.
Old problems
European delegates have complaints against their Russian counterparts nonetheless. The thing is, Moscow has been pledging to ratify Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights for a couple of years. This protocol has been ratified by all the member-states of the Council of Europe, except for Russia, and it can’t come into force without Russia’s ratification. The protocol provides for reforming of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), whose functioning has been virtually paralyzed. The European Court is overloaded with cases, being able to put on trial very few of them under the current scheme of work. The ratification of Protocol 14 will allow the Court to be more efficient and try more cases.
Russia, a champion in the number of suits filed against it, has shown its willingness to ratify Protocol 14. The Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee and even President Putin supported the idea. But in December, 2006 the Duma voted against the ratification. The PACE delegates more than once claimed that it was the Kremlin that blocked the reform of the European Court; the Russian government retorted that in Russia the legislative branch was independent from the executive one, having no opportunity to influence it. Russian delegates to Strasbourg expressed their hope that the newly elected fifth Duma would vote for the reforming of the European Court. But the source of Kommersant within the Russian delegation said that there was practically no hope that Protocol 14 would be ratified. According to the source, “In Russia the European Court is often treated an anti-Russian organization, whose verdicts are directed against the state.”
The PACE has taken various steps to influence the position of Russia. In January the outgoing PACE President Rene van der Linden invited President Putin to visit the April session of the Assembly. It was reckoned that the Russian leader wouldn’t want to come to Strasbourg empty-handed, and would make a fine gesture before his stepdown, declaring from the PACE tribune the ratification of Protocol 14, or Russia’s intention to abolish death penalty, which is another bone of contention between Moscow and Strasbourg. Vladimir Putin didn’t accept the invitation of Mr van der Linden, and he won’t be present at the session this week. According to a high-ranking official, the Kremlin was not sure that everything would go off during the President’s speech in Strasbourg. “The PACE is no NATO, where the behaviour and statements of the conferees can be predicted. In PACE there are such delegated that can act unappropriately,” the official underscored.
Mr van der Linden’s successor, Lluís Maria de Puig, elected PACE President in January, expressed his readiness to invite Russia’s president-elect to Strasbourg. Nonetheless the high-ranking official stated that one couldn’t reckon with a visit of Dmitry Medvedev to the PACE in the near future, since neither the abolition of death penalty nor Russia’s endorsement of the reform of the European Court was planned for the time being.
The PACE delegates from European states questioned by Kommersant pointed out that these two problems could aggravate the relations between Moscow and Strasbourg. If the PACE doesn’t bring accusations against Russia during the current session, the question will be put point-blank. The only means for PACE to influence Russia is depriving its delegation of the right to vote. Such an incident has already happened to Russia: from April 2000 to January 2001 the then delegation headed by Dmitry Rogozin was disfranchised. The accusations brought that time concerned the violation against human rights in Chechnya. Since then the reputed critics of Russia, Lord Judd and Rudolf Bindig have left the PACE, and the Russian delegation managed to find a common ground with its PACE counterparts, acquiring much influence in the Assembly. But this year the old problems may arise again.
New surprise
Unlike Vladimir Putin, who decided to abstain from visiting Strasbourg during the current session, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko agreed to come to the current PACE session. They will deliver their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday correspondingly. Meantime the Ukrainian delegation, according to the information of Kommersant, is going to suggest that the session pass a special resolution rendering the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor) act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
The state of affairs in Belorus is going to be one of the key issues discussed during the current session. On Tuesday a Cyprus delegate, Christos Purguridis will deliver a report on power abuse in the security apparatus of Belorus. This country has never been member of the Council of Europe, and in 1997 was even deprived of its status of the special guest. Nonetheless a representative of Minsk is expected to arrive in Strasbourg, with the Russian delegation insisting on it. According to Russia’s representatives, they do not wish to be the sole champions of Belorus, responsible for everything happening in the country.
Finally, Georgia can get a long-awaited present during the current session. As far back as last year a group of PACE delegates put forward a proposal that an ad hoc report be prepared tackling the death of Georgia’s ex-Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania. So far the Bureau of the Assembly hasn’t decided whether to initiate the case, that is why this week things are to be put right. It was Russia’s initiative to launch an investigation, but only two members of the Russian delegation – Konstantin Kosachev and Mikhail Marguelov – signed the document. Reputed delegates from Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Slovakia and Iceland are the rest of the authors of the document.
History of the Matter
Conflicts of Russia and the PACE
Since 1995 the PACE has adopted several resolutions condemning Russia’s policy in Chechnya. Resolution 1456 “Conflict in the Chechen Republic” of April 6, 2000 was the most scandalous one. That time the parliamentarians deprived Russia’s delegation of the right to vote and recommended that the Committee of Ministers consider suspending Russia’s membership. In protest, the Russians left the session and did not come to the following one. On January 25, 2001 Russia’s rights were restored.
On January 25, 2006 the Assembly subjected the Russian law on non-governmental organizations to severe criticism. In particular, the amendments to the Resolution on human rights in Chechnya contained charges of “the persecution of NGOs by administrative bodies and law machinery.” At the same time a conflict was brought about concerning the Resolution condemning the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes. The document provided for rendering the policy of the communist regime in the USSR illegitimate and ban against using communist symbols. The Russian delegation managed to persuade the Assembly to pass a milder draft of the resolution.
In January 2008 some of the PACE delegates opposed the appointment of Russia’s Mikhail Marguelov Chairman of the Assembly, who was to assume office according to the principle of rotation. In the end Russia gave in to altering the principle of rotation in exchange for the refusal to invite Georgia’s President, Mikhail Saakashvili to the PACE session. On January 21 Spain’s Lluís Maria de Puig became the new President of the PACE; and Mr Saakashvili took the floor during the session of the Assembly.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 14, 2008
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