MINSK, June 19. /TASS/. Amendments to Russia’s constitution regarding the priority of national legislation are absolutely legitimate in terms of international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TASS on Friday during his visit to Minsk.
"Should the European Court of Human Rights be taken, a variety of countries, such as Germany, Great Britain and some others, which identify themselves as developed democracies, have similar reservations in their legislations ensuring that no decisions against them are to be enacted once they contradict the relevant constitution," he said, commenting on the Venice Commission’s final opinion on amendments to the Russian Constitution.
"I cannot even understand why so much attention is paid to the given issue, which is absolutely legitimate in terms of international law," said the Russian foreign minister.
Lavrov recalled that the amendment to Article 79 of the Russian constitution, which is put to a public vote, pursues a goal of "ensuring the implementation of all international obligations once they do not contravene the constitution of the Russian Federation."
"International obligations are imposed on Russia by international treaties which Russia signs voluntarily after the negotiations on their drafts have ended and we have made sure that the balance of interests is ensured," the minister emphasized. "What Russia has ratified on the basis of its constitution remains our international obligations."
According to the Russian foreign minister, in recent years Western countries have vested the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention, "with the powers to determine the guilt," although they "are prerogatives of the United Nations Security Council."
"We definitely won’t be cooperating in the way that our Western counterparts are attempting to impose [tailoring] the investigations into incidents in line with their own patterns, which are not specified in the Convention. Should anybody reproach us that we have ratified the treaty but are not implementing it, we will be in a different position, we will be in the position of a dutiful party to the treaty. However, those who have grossly violated the procedures stipulated in the convention will be among the violators," Lavrov explained.
Venice Commission’s report
On Thursday, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe (CE) released its final opinion on amendments to the Russian Constitution. The Venice Commission stated that the rulings of the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) are mandatory for all the members of the Council of Europe. The document says that the Venice Commission expressed serious concerns that the amendment vesting the Russian Constitutional Court with powers to declare an international decision "non-executable" contradicts Russia’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Commission says that those powers would be boosted by the draft amendment to Article 79, which stipulates the supremacy of Russia’s Constitution over international agreements and the resolutions of international institutions.