ECtHR Cases
Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have brought several cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), detailing the numerous violations of human rights and due process that both men have endured.
On May 20, 2009, the ECtHR issued its Admissibility Decision on Khodorkovsky's first application to the Strasbourg Court initially submitted in 2004. The Court rejected the arguments of the Russian Federation that had sought to have the application ruled inadmissible, and instead ruled that Khodorkovsky's argument that there had been fundamental violations of his human rights raised "serious issues of fact and law under the Convention" which now must be considered for a final judgment.
The Court decided that Khodorkovsky's allegations of the following breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights 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
Previously, in October of 2007, the ECtHR found that Lebedev's prosecution violated international human rights laws and awarded him damages. They found that he had been detained illegally and denied access to counsel, that hearings were conducted on Lebedev's case without his attorneys present, that proceedings were unlawfully delayed, and the appeal process obstructed.
Several other petitions by both men are still pending, and include a request to the ECtHR to rule on the fairness of Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's first trial, as well as violations of law made in the course of the investigation on the new criminal allegations.
For example, Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's application on the unfairness of their trial was made on the basis that they were denied a just and fair trial; were convicted of economic crimes solely on the basis of alleged conduct that was not even criminal at the time it was undertaken; and that their persecution, conviction and punishment were politically motivated to remove them from the public and political life of the country, and to deprive them of their property.
Also at issue, the conditions at trial were contrived to humiliate Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, and deprive them of their dignity. In addition, the decision that they were to serve their sentence in a remote location away from their families unlawfully interferes with their right to respect for private and family life contrary to international human rights law.
In May 2009, the ECtHR ruled admissible Khodorkovsky's first appeal to the Court dating from 2004. The Court comprehensively rejected the arguments of the Russian Federation that had sought to have the application ruled inadmissible. Instead the Court ruled that Khodorkovsky's argument that there had been fundamental violations of his human rights raised "serious issues of fact and law under the Convention" which now must be considered for a final judgment.
Read the ECtHR decision on the admissibility of Khodorkovsky's claims >>