The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has deeply deplored the lack of response of the Russian authorities to the Committee’s earlier appeals to implement the Georgia v. Russia (I) judgment from the European Court of Human Rights concerning the arrest, detention and collective expulsion of Georgian nationals in 2006-2007. It again exhorted the Russian authorities to pay the “just satisfaction” awarded to the Georgian government.
In an Interim Resolution (*) published today, the Committee of Ministers recalled that, despite ceasing to be a member of the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022, the Russian Federation is still required to implement judgments of the European Court, and the Committee of Ministers continues to supervise their execution. The Committee deeply deplored that no information was provided by the Russian authorities ahead of the meeting.
In its 2019 judgment on just satisfaction, the European Court of Human Rights determined that Russia was to pay the Georgian government, within three months, 10 million euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage suffered by a group of at least 1,500 Georgian nationals. The European Court also ruled that the Georgian government was to set up an effective mechanism for the distribution of the money to the individual victims.
At its latest regular meeting to supervise the implementation of judgments, the Committee of Ministers again reiterated its profound concern that the payment has not been made, more than three years after the deadline expired.
The Committee firmly reiterated that the payment of just satisfaction awarded by the Court is an unconditional obligation. “Delay in fulfilling this obligation deprives the individual victims of the violations from receiving compensation for the damages suffered by them,” the Committee stressed.
It again exhorted the Russian authorities to pay the just satisfaction, together with the default interest accrued, without any further delay.
The Committee once again invited the authorities of the Council of Europe member states to explore all possible means to ensure the execution of this case and instructed the Secretariat to come up with proposals for a strategy for supervising the execution of pending cases against the Russian Federation. The Committee will resume consideration of this case at their next meeting on execution of ECHR judgments in December 2022.
The Committee of Ministers has also adopted a decision on the execution of the judgment in the case Georgia v. Russia (II) which has become final in October 2021 and concerned various violations in the context of the armed conflict between Georgia and the Russian Federation in August 2008.
