Council of Europe gets involved in making Russia pay €10 mln fine to Georgia
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, June 10
After the request of Georgia’s Justice Ministry, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, a top decision-making body of CoE, will discuss the case of illegal deportation of Georgians from Russia in 2006-2007 ‘under enhanced supervision’ and will also hold debates to make Russia pay the fine, set by the European Court of Human Rights in early 2019.
The committee will also demand official explanations from Russia on why they refuse to pay the fine, which must have been paid until May 1, 2019, in a three-month time from delivering the verdict on January 31, 2019.
“We will use all lawful levers to make the country meet the ECHR’s verdict,” Georgian Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani says.
Russian legislators stated shortly after delivering the verdict that Russia would not have paid the “unlawful” fine.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia must pay from EURO 2,000 to EURO 15,000 to the Georgian nationals who were unlawfully treated in Russia between 2006 and 2007 when hundreds of Georgian citizens were illegally detained and deported from the country.
The Court affirmed that 14 of the 19 applicants were illegally deported and 13 of them had faced a breach of their liberty and security rights, faced inhumane and degrading treatment and did not have access to an effective remedy.
ECHR stated that Russia must pay Georgia 10,000,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage, a group of at least 1,500 Georgian nationals suffered with.
In 2006-2007 more than 4,600 expulsion orders were issued by Russian authorities against Georgian nationals.
More than 2,300 were detained and forcibly expelled, and the remaining left the country on their own.
The mass deportation was preceded by the arrest of four Russian officers on charges of espionage by the previous, United National Movement government of Georgia in September 2006.
In revenge, later in 2006 large numbers of Georgian nationals were mistreated in Russia.
