All news

Russia to appeal ECHR decision on illegitimacy of Dima Yakovlev law

The ECHR ruled earlier in the day that the Dima Yakovlev law, which prohibits the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens, runs counter to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. Moscow will appeal the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on recognizing illegitimate the adoption of Russian children under the so-called Dima Yakovlev law, Russia’s Representative at the European Court of Human Rights and Deputy Minister of Justice, Georgy Matyushkin, told the Echo of Moscow radio station on Tuesday.

"Russia intends to appeal the ECHR decision," the radio station’s website quotes him as saying.

The ECHR ruled earlier in the day that the Dima Yakovlev law, which prohibits the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens, runs counter to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered Russia to pay 3,000 euros in compensation to each of the plantiffs who filed a lawsuit.

The lawsuit against Russia was filed by 45 US citizens who planned to adopt Russian children. After the law was passed, the adoption procedures were halted. 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 passed by the US Congress in December 2012 placing sanctions on a number of Russian officials.