Secretary-General of the Council of Europe gave an interview to Kommersant
A conference of European ministers in charge of social cohesion sponsored by the Council of Europe and the Russian Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development will take place in Moscow today. It will be opened by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe TERRY DAVIS who told Kommersant's MIKHAIL ZIGAR why Europe is disappointed with Russia.
Question: Of late Russia has been the Council of Europe's most problematic partner. Are you going to say it to Vladimir Putin?
Answer: I disagree both with the word "problematic" and with the word "partner". Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, one of 47. I would not say that we have problem relations. The Council of Europe is a living and functioning organisation which of course has some contradictions and disputes. But then the only place where there are no differences and discussions is the graveyard.
Q.: Let us recall then that Russia is the only Council of Europe member which has not ratified Protocol 14 to the European Human Rights Convention.
A.: And that, of course, is a great disappointment. True, it was the State Duma that has not ratified Protocol 14 envisaging a reform of the European Human Rights Court to make it more effective and to enable it to process applications more promptly. The Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, when he was still the President, recommended the Duma to ratify the Protocol, but the deputies refused. I find it hard to understand why the Duma is hesitating. For example, in Britain the majority party usually follows its leader's recommendations. As far as I know Prime Minister Putin is the leader of the party which holds the majority in the Duma. It is hard for Europe to understand why the State Duma deputies do not back Putin on the issue.
Moreover, Europe finds it hard to understand why the Duma deputies are acting contrary to the interests of the Russian citizens although they have been elected to protect them. This is the message I am taking to Moscow. I have expressed this idea before and I will go on talking about it. Those who have been elected by the Russian people must vote in the interests of the Russian people. It is in the interests of the Russian people to make the European Court as effective as possible. Many applications filed with the Court come from ordinary Russian citizens, a quarter of all the lawsuits filed with the Strasbourg Court are from Russia.
Q.: There is a feeling among the Russian political elite that the European Human Rights Court is an anti-Russian organisation. For example, they recall that the court recently accepted the YUKOS case for consideration despite objections of the Russian Government.
A.: To begin with, I am surprised to hear about the "Russian political elite". I am a democrat and I do not believe in a "political elite". People are elected to represent the interests of ordinary citizens, so I am far more worried about the opinion of ordinary people than of the political elite. I have spent almost all my life in British politics fighting the elite, that is, the aristocracy and power.
Secondly, if this is Prime Minister Putin's view he must have changed his views since he ceased to be President. Because when he was the President he officially asked the Duma to ratify Protocol 14. Yet even if he thinks the European Court to be anti-Russian, although I disagree with this, he has a right to think so and he can go on thinking so if he wants to. But this need not prevent him from seeking the ratification of Protocol 14.
As for the YUKOS case, all the court has done is to decide to hear the case. You cannot describe a judge as being anti-Russian or anti-anything if he simply agrees to hear a case. The judges hear both sides, the Russian Government and the people who have sued it before delivering their judgment.
And then, the only description of the European Court I can agree with is that it is independent. I myself often cannot agree with its decisions, but it is important that the judges do not depend on any government. Perhaps there are people in Russia who are used to the times when the judges did what the commissars told them to do. But this is not today's Russia, it is the Russia of yesterday. I have a higher opinion of Russia than these people. Russia is working to become a democracy. Many of Russia's eastern neighbours need the Russian example: they should be shown what it is like to live in a democracy, to have independent courts that do not take their instructions from the Government. This is the Russia in which I believe. If I were a Duma member, I would come out for this Russia.
Q.: The Russian authorities think that the European Court is prejudiced against Russia.
A.: There are many prejudices against Russia in Europe. That is true. But that does not mean the European Council is prejudiced. Russia is part of it. I hope I myself have never been accused of being prejudiced. In fact they often accuse me of being too soft on Russia because I am unbiased and try to be objective. Because I do not believe that Russia is part of the "axis of evil", to use the expression of the ex-President of the US, George Bush. I respect Russia and I am on the side of those Russians who uphold democracy, human rights and the rule of law. An independent judiciary is part of the rule of law. I have not met with President Medvedev, but have the impression that he agrees that a country must have effective and independent judges. I will give you one example. I have been a member of the British Parliament for 28 years. For most of that time the British Prime Minister was a woman called Margaret Thatcher. I was strongly opposed to her and voted against her in Parliament more often than anybody else. But I must admit that when the European Human Rights Court made decisions that Mrs Thatcher did not like she always fulfilled them. Moreover, although she did not like the Court's decision she even changed the laws to follow the European Court rulings. This is what a democratic government of a country which is a member of the Council of Europe must do. Nobody has forced Russia to accept the decisions of the European Court, Russia has committed itself to fulfill them when joining the Council of Europe. It is too late to backtrack only because you do not like the decisions of that court.
Q.: During the course of the recent PACE sessions the question of stripping the Russian delegation of its vote has regularly been raised. Each time the Russian delegation declared that it would then withdraw from PACE. Is that a possibility?
A.: Russia was stripped of its vote seven or eight years ago at the height of the Chechen war. At the time I was a PACE member and I opposed that move. When the issue was discussed for the first time this year, I managed to persuade the majority. But at the next session that viewpoint, unfortunately, lost and Russia was stripped of its casting vote for almost a year. But that is democracy, the PACE delegates exercised their sovereign right, we had to accept it.
The MPs must be guided by their own convictions, they do not receive instructions from their governments. During the time that I have been the member of parliament I have never received instructions from the Government. Because if somebody tried to instruct me I would have done everything the other way around. Because I do not follow other people's instructions. This is the advice that could be given to the Russian delegation. They must take their own decisions. And they must remember that you always lose an argument when you walk out of the room.
