European Court of Human Rights: Khodorkovsky Case

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I declare an interest or, more precisely, a brief. For the past five years I have represented Mr Khodorkovsky as his leading counsel in his applications to the European Court of Human Rights, where he is complaining about his two trials, convictions and prison sentences. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to comment at all on the merits of those applications and I will not do so. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, for introducing this debate. He has provoked valuable contributions from all noble Lords who have spoken and has given me the opportunity to address certain wider issues.

The first of these is the quite extraordinary delays by the European court in reaching its judgments. Your Lordships know that Mr Khodorkovsky has been detained and then imprisoned by the Russian authorities since October 2003. His first application to the European court was filed in February 2004. It complained about his arrest, his detention, the conditions in which he was detained and a number of other matters. The European court took more than seven years to reach a judgment, which was delivered in May 2011, finding a number of violations of the convention by the Russian authorities.

Mr Khodorkovsky filed a second application in Strasbourg in March 2006, and that one complained about his first trial conviction and sentence, the trial ending in May 2005. The European court will give judgment on that application this Thursday coming, which is more than seven years after the application was lodged in Strasbourg. There is a third application which Mr Khodorkovsky filed in November 2007, and that complains about his second prosecution and subsequent trial, conviction and sentence. The second trial began in March 2009. It ended with a further prison sentence in December 2010. This third Strasbourg application remains pending some five and a half years after it was filed, and indeed it is still in the early stages of consideration by the European court.

The Minister will know that the Strasbourg court regularly criticises national courts for failing to decide cases within a reasonable time, contrary to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Can I ask the Minister whether the Government think that it is satisfactory for the European court itself to take such lengthy periods of time to decide cases, particularly in relation to an applicant who is complaining about his detention and his imprisonment? What representations will the Government make to the Strasbourg court and what steps will the Government take in the Council of Europe urgently to address these delays?

The second point I want to touch on is the record of the Russian Federation in Strasbourg. Last year, in 2012, the Strasbourg court gave 134 substantive judgments in cases concerning the Russian Federation. In 122 of those, it found at least one violation of human rights. Some 36 of the cases concerned breaches of the right to a fair hearing, while 64 cases involved breaches of the right to liberty or security of person. The year 2012 was typical of the appalling human rights record in Strasbourg of the Russian Federation. The Minister will also know that from 2004 until 2010, the Russian Federation, alone among all Council of Europe countries, refused to ratify Protocol 14 to the convention to make the Strasbourg procedures more efficient. What representations are the Government making to the Russian Federation about Russia’s appalling human rights record, and, to echo other noble Lords tonight, what action are we taking in this respect?

There is a third and final point that I want to touch on. The United Kingdom Government have regularly and regrettably reacted to adverse judgments in the European Court of Human Rights with complaints, criticisms, and sometimes years of delay in implementing adverse judgments against this country. The issue of votes for prisoners is the most extreme example but, regrettably, it is not the only one. Earlier this month, the Strasbourg court decided that prisoners serving whole-life tariffs must receive a periodic review of their sentence. The Prime Minister’s spokesman was quoted as saying that the Prime Minister was,

“very, very, very, very disappointed. He profoundly disagrees with the court’s ruling”.

Does the Minister recognise—do the Government recognise—that the prospects of encouraging the Russian Federation to respect judgments of the Strasbourg court and to adhere to basic human rights principles are simply undermined by the Government’s own lack of respect for the judgments of the Strasbourg court?

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, for introducing this debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.