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Neil Garnham QC (now Mr Justice Garnham) and Robert Wastell of 1COR acted for the Secretary of State for the Home Department at the Litvinenko Inquiry. David Evans QC and Alasdair Henderson acted for AWE Plc. None was involved in preparing this post.
The publication on Thursday of the long awaited report by Sir Robert Owen into the circumstances of the death of Alexander Litivenko from polonium poisoning on 23 November 2006 has (unsurprisingly) resulted in bitter criticism by the Russian Government of the Inquiry’s conclusions that the poisoning was probably directed by the Russian Federal Security Service, and probably approved by President Putin. The report is long (246 pages not including Appendices), but in page after page of readable and measured prose Sir Robert Owen tells the extraordinary story of Alexander Litvinenko’s death and the subsequent 9 year investigation into it. Continue reading →
A good week, to say the least, for Mikhail Kordokovsky, recently released from a Russian jail. A complex story of punitive tax assessments on his former company, Yukos, has led to a judgement of €1.866 bn in Strasbourg against Russia.
I shall concentrate on the Strasbourg case, although for sheer numbers the story is perhaps elsewhere; on 28 July 2014 shareholders had obtained awards from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ordering Russia to pay $51.57 bn to shareholders in Yukos Oil, saying officials had manipulated the legal system to bankrupt the company.
Janowiec and Others v Russia (Applications nos. 55508/07 and 29520/09) – read judgment
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that it had no competence to examine complaints relating to the adequacy of Russia’s criminal investigation into events that had occurred prior to the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1950: namely the Katyń Massacre of 1940.
The applicants were relations of 12 victims of the Katyń Massacre. They had been executed by the NKVD together with over 20,000 other former Polish Army officers, government officials, and landowners. A criminal investigation into the deaths ran from 1990 until 2004 when the Chief Military Prosecutor decided to discontinue ‘Criminal Case no. 159’ on the grounds that any alleged suspects were dead.
Kirovogradoblenergo, Pat v Ukraine (Application no. 35088/07) 27 June 2013 – read judgment
Shortly after the break up of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine introduced an interesting piece of legislation called the Status of Judges Act.
Being a judge behind the Iron Curtain couldn’t have been much fun, and rendering the profession more attractive once society had opened up somewhat was probably one of the more pressing challenges facing the new regime. One of the chief provisions in the SoJA was to spare members of the judiciary from paying half their electricity bills. What this tells us about the status of judges before and shortly after the dissolution of communism is itself an interesting subject, but outside the scope of this post. Continue reading →
Korobov and others v. Estonia, 28 March 2013, ECtHR read judgment
At one level, this is a story of Estonian police over-reaction to major disturbances on the streets of Tallinn, which will be found reproduced in various incidents throughout ECHR countries at various times of civil strife. But a good deal of history and politics lies behind it, and Russia’s intervention in Strasbourg, in support of the applicants’ claims under Article 3 (excessive force) and 5(1) (unlawful detention) against Estonia is of some interest.
The Bronze Soldier, originally named “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn” was unveiled there on 22 September 1947, on the third anniversary of that “liberation” in 1944. Not all – including ethnic Estonians – saw it as a liberation. The Germans had retreated before the Red Army arrived, and on 18 September 1944 the Provisional Estonian government had declared independence – short-lived as Estonia was rapidly incorporated into the Eastern bloc courtesy of the Red Army. So “takeover” might be a term closer to Estonians’ hearts.
I attended a talk this morning given by Igor Sutyagin, a nuclear scientist who was detained for 11 years on charges of treason. He was released in July as part of the high-profile spy-swap with the United States.
Hearing Sutyagin’s description of the Russian justice system, as well as the “gulag” he was sent to for over a decade, brings into focus the enormous difference between legal systems within Europe. In the UK we can confidently expect that courts and judges will uphold the rule of law and act with impartiality. Whilst there are notable exceptions, our legal system has checks and balances in order that poor decisions can be weeded out. That system is imperfect but at least it is predictable and, on the whole, fair.
Human rights challenges to deportation and extradition seem to be constantly in the public eye. Gary McKinnon’s battle against extradition has caught the public, as has the now notorious “Pathway Students” terrorist deportation case. An examination of three recent decisions highlights the various ways in which the courts approach the human rights arguments in such cases.
There have been a steady stream of high-profile deportation and extradition decisions in the past few weeks, none more controversial than the “Pathway students” case, where two suspected terrorists were saved from deportation to Pakistan as they were thought to be at risk of torture or death upon their return. The Daily Telegraph reports that the Human Rights Act is being invoked in a growing number of asylum and immigration case, although it does not say whether the number of successful uses of the Act has increased.
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Neil Garnham QC (now Mr Justice Garnham) and Robert Wastell of 1COR acted for the Secretary of State for the Home Department at the Litvinenko Inquiry. David Evans QC and Alasdair Henderson acted for AWE Plc. None was involved in preparing this post.
Janowiec and Others v Russia (Applications nos. 55508/07 and 29520/09) – 
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