2009 ORDINARY SESSION

________________________

(Fourth part)

REPORT

Thirty-second Sitting

Wednesday 30 September 2009 at 3 p.m.

Mr HERKEL (Estonia). – I, too, thank the interpreters, and I would like to express my admiration for the report, which is very good. It is both theoretically strong and gives practical advice, and it is timely, too. The issue of the independence of the judiciary is always a problem, and during the economic crisis, new problems will probably arise as a result of budgeting. However, the most important problem is the systematic dysfunction of the judicial system, as described in our previous discussion about human rights defenders and the human rights situation in the North Caucasus.

The most visible criminal justice systems described – those of the United Kingdom, France and Germany – have their strong sides, but also have their problems. The rapporteur has done scrupulous work. The fourth system described, which we can call post-Soviet – we are not talking only about Russia; in the case of several other countries, there are similar elements – is more complicated to handle and improve. In our monitoring reports, we often use expressions such as “judicial corruption”, “pressure on judges”, “lack of independence” and sometimes even “lack of qualified lawyers”, but when there is such systematic work to be done, we have the capacity to do it. Case studies are very important, including those that we mentioned in previous reports, such as the Gongadze and Yukos cases. However, this report makes an even more important theoretical contribution. In the memorandum, the Yukos case is once again touched on, as are several other cases. Khodorkovsky is one of the most emblematic victims of Putin’s Russia.

I should like to make a remark about one of our instruments, the European Court of Human Rights. I think that it was Mr Díaz Tejera who said, during the previous debate, that to some extent we live in very different worlds. The problems in western Europe and in the North Caucasus belong to different systems, and in some ways to different worlds. The European Court of Human Rights has, by and large, two different working regimes. One involves handling highly controversial issues, or intellectually interesting issues in the grey areas of jurisprudence, such as the issue of euthanasia. That is very important work. The other work, which concerns member states, is to improve the functioning of the judicial system in certain countries. Of course, in this context, the possibilities are limited.

I want to return to the limited possibilities available for the Assembly. This report is one of the best examples of what we can do intellectually to protect the basic principles of justice.

Tervikdokument: http://assembly.coe.int/