MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Russia pays more than 1 billion rubles ($12.9 million) in compensations awarded in accordance with decisions delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Russia’s Representative to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Deputy Minister of Justice Mikhail Galperin said Monday.
"We pay more than 1 billion rubles each year. On the one hand, it is a lot of money. But on the other hand, we pay it to our own citizens," he noted. "These are the Russian citizens whose rights were violated and, correspondingly, they get this money as compensation."
Therefore, Galperin rejected accusations that Russia ignores and does not abide by decisions of the Strasbourg court. He underlined that much is done so that Russians do not have to seek justice at the ECHR and be able to protect their rights in Russia. "The adoption and operation of the national compensation mechanism relating to improper conditions of detention was a big joint victory, this law came into effect last year," he noted, adding that the bill was passed amid complicated political relations between Russia and the Council of Europe. According to him, legal decisions have already been delivered as more than 2,000 cases were referred from the ECHR level to Russia and detainees receive compensations.
"We have a lot to do still. The work is underway on a new code of administrative violations which will also take into account many ECHR approaches," the deputy minister added.