STRASBOURG, January 17. /TASS/. 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 compensations to them, the judgement says.

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 compensations to each of the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit and also $600 for legal expenses.

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.

The Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("The right to respect for private and family life") was not violated, the ECHR said.

The ECHR said the decision this is not final and any of the sides may demand the reconsideration of the case by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR.

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.