Russian lawmaker proposes Constitutional Court reform

© RIA Novosti, Aleksey Danichev

11:47 14/05/2014

MOSCOW, May 14 (RAPSI) – Lawmaker Viktor Pinsky (United Russia) has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would amend the law on the Constitutional Court. The goal is to reform the court and to introduce new principles for cooperation with the European Court of Human Rights, Kommersant newspaper writes on Wednesday.

The bill would give the Constitutional Court the power to confirm the constitutionality of the provisions which the ECHR considers discriminating.

Pinsky writes that these amendments “are designed to take into account the legal views put forth in the Constitutional Court’s resolution of December 6, 2013,” which determined “the role of the Constitutional Court in a situation when an ECHR ruling de facto hinders the application of Russian legislation.”

As Kommersant wrote on December 7, 2013, the Constitutional Court monopolized the power to choose methods for dealing with those ECHR rulings that contradict the Russian court’s position.

Under the bill, Article 101 of the law on the Constitutional Court would specify a procedure for reviewing cases on which the ECHR ruled that human rights and liberties had been violated by the application of law in Russia. The deputy has proposed giving the courts the power to appeal to the Constitutional Court if they decide that the application of law is possible only after it is proved to be in conformity with the Russian constitution.

Other amendments would introduce a more flexible attitude to the number of Constitutional Court judges, which is set in the constitution at 19. Article 4 of the law would be amended to reduce the number of judges required to consider the work of the Constitutional Court legal from three fourths to two thirds.