Russia is again in the lead by number of complaints lodged to ECtHR

On January 26, Nicolas Bratza, Chairman of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, said at a press conference that Russia is leading by the number of complaints submitted to the Court. According to his story, by December 31, 2011, the ECtHR had registered 40,250 complaints against Russia, which is 26.6 percent of total complaints received. A significant part of decisions on them has to do with the cases of residents of Northern Caucasus.

In total, according to the Chairman, the ECtHR has registered 151,600 complaints on human rights violations.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Russian Federation had earlier taken the first place by the number of new complaints filed against it at the ECtHR. This was the case in 2009, when the total number of claims received from Russia exceeded 13,600. In total, as of the start of 2010, the Strasbourg Court had 33,500 lawsuits against Russian authorities; the majority was made up of the complaints concerning events in Chechnya.

In early 2011, Russia was also in the lead by the total number of complaints to the ECtHR.

In 2011, Russia overtook Turkey by the number of new complaints forwarded to the ECtHR - 7749 cases against 7617.

Most frequently, complaints from Russia deal with violations of initial articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which are most relevant for the Court.

Earlier, Anatoly Kovler, the judge of the ECtHR from Russia, said that the most numerous are complaints of the people dissatisfied with non-enforcement of decisions of national courts - 17 percent of total complaints. The second place was shared by complaints against pre-trial custody conditions, claims to quality of medical care and complaints about violations of the adversarial principle at trials, the RAPSI reports.

Last year, the ECtHR considered 133 cases of Russians filed against the authorities; on 121 of them the state was found guilty of violating ECHR articles.

The absolute lead belongs to Russia's violations of the article on the right to life - according to the court, 111 violations of this right were fixed in consideration of Russians' complaints. Russia is also often found guilty of breaching the article of prohibition of torture (90 cases), and the article on the right to fair trial (71 facts), the RIA "Novosti" reports.

About every tenth claim against Russia is satisfied in part or in full. According to experts' estimates, every year the Russian budget spends around 10 million euros to pay for decisions of the ECtHR, the ITAR-TASS reports.