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Russia finds worrisome politicization of ECHR activities

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko pointed to the growing number of inter-state lawsuits and what he described as "deformation of international legal norms"

MOSCOW, May 17. /TASS/. Russia finds worrisome the politicization of the European Court of Human Rights' activities, which endangers the whole human rights system of the Council of Europe, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said at the opening of courses at the European Studies Institute of MGIMO University and the Council of Europe.

"We find worrisome the politicization of ECHR activities. This organization's impartiality is called to remain not only the basic condition of the existence of the court as such, but of the whole human rights system of the Council of Europe," he said.

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Grushko pointed to the growing number of inter-state lawsuits and what he described as "deformation of international legal norms."

"In this context I cannot but point to the doctrine of effective control. The very principle of the courts' subsidiarity is called in question and interpreted loosely by the ECHR. All this plants mines under the basis of the Council of Europe," Grushko said.

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