Lawyers treat compensation for child's death in Chechnya as essentially understated

Russian courts usually underestimate the amount of compensation for the death of relatives as a result of law enforcers' actions, but the 20,000 roubles awarded to Natalia Zagudaeva, a resident of the Krasnodar Territory, for the death of her child during the second Chechen campaign are a disproportionate compensation. Judges have no unified approach in defining compensations; they are often guided by their subjective beliefs, lawyers have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Krasnodar Territorial Court awarded 20,000 roubles in compensation to Natalia Zagudaeva for the death of her three-year-old child during the shelling of Grozny in 1999. She has treated the amount as miserable and intends to appeal against it.

Magomed Alamov, a lawyer for the North-Caucasian branch of the "Team against Torture", treats the compensation for the child's death as ridiculous. He has noted that courts fail to satisfy claimants' demands and understate the awarded compensations.

Galina Tarasova, a former lawyer-coordinator of the "Hot Spots" programme of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"*, liquidated by a court decision, agrees with Mr Alamov. "This is a humiliatingly disproportionate compensation. For example, in a dispute over compensations for moral harm suffered by relatives of residents of the Chechen village of Staraya Sunzha who perished during shelling in 1995, the court ruled to recover one million roubles in favour of each claimant," Ms Tarasova has stated.

"If it is proved that the child died as a result of troops' actions, then such amounts are not awarded; compensations must be much larger," Alexander Nemov, a lawyer, is sure.