MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the Dima Yakovlev law, which bans US citizens from adopting Russian children, may be a reason for Moscow to overhaul it, but if there is a good will of the US, the head of Russia’s presidential human rights council, Mikhail Fedotov, told TASS.
"The ECHR decision on the Dima Yakovlev Law is an excellent reason to revise it. But we won’t forget that it was passed in response to the unfriendly US steps and the law was an answer to the US so-called Magnitsky Act," Fedotov said.
The human rights official noted that during the discussion on the Dima Yakovlev law in the State Duma the members of the Council noted that children must not suffer due to foreign policy conflicts. "If the US side shows good will, I think that Russia should make advances on its part and allow the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens," he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia’s Dima Yakovlev law, which took effect four years ago, violated the rights of potential adoptive parents from the US and ordered Moscow to pay compensation to them.
The judges came to a conclusion that the law violates Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that Russia should pay 3,000 euros in compensation to each of the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit and also $600 for legal expenses. The ECHR ruled that rights of the children were not violated.
Russia’s lawmakers passed the so-called Dima Yakovlev Law that took effect in January 2013 banning US citizens from adopting children in Russia. The legislation is named after a child from northwest Russia's Pskov region who died of heat stroke four months after being adopted by a US couple when his adoptive father left him in a parked car for nine hours.
The Dima Yakovlev Law is considered to be a response to the Magnitsky Act adopted by the US Congress in December 2012, placing sanctions on a number of Russian officials.