ECtHR Cases

Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have brought several applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, seeking redress for the numerous violations of human rights and due process that they have endured in Russia.

In May 2009, the ECtHR issued its admissibility decision on Khodorkovsky's first application to the court, which had been submitted in February 2004. The ECtHR rejected the arguments of the Russian Federation that had sought to have the application ruled inadmissible, and instead ruled that Khodorkovsky's complaints of fundamental violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ratified by Russia in May 1998) raised "serious issues of fact and law under the Convention" to be considered for a final judgment.

The ECtHR decided that Khodorkovsky's allegations of the following breaches of the Convention were all admissible:

  • Article 3: Inhuman and degrading treatment
  • Article 5: Unlawful arrest and subsequent detention
  • Article 18: His arrest, detention and prosecution were politically motivated

Ruling on a first application of narrower scope from Lebedev submitted in January 2004, in October 2007 the ECtHR found numerous and grave violations of Lebedev's pre-trial rights, and awarded him damages. The ECtHR found that Lebedev's prosecution violated international human rights laws. It found that Lebedev had been detained illegally and denied access to counsel, that hearings were conducted on his case without his attorneys present, that proceedings were unlawfully delayed and the appeal process obstructed. More than two years after the ECtHR's October 2007 ruling favoring Lebedev, in December 2009 the Presidium of Russia's Supreme Court agreed with the ruling, but this did not impact the proceedings of the second criminal case then underway.

In May 2010, the ECtHR ruled that Lebedev's second application, on trial and post-trial violations, was admissible on several grounds. This and other applications by both men, including complaints over the refusal of Russian courts to stay proceedings in the second criminal case, continue to work their way through the ECtHR's docket.