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Georgia VS Russia Number 2

September 23, 2011

Nino Tarkhnishvili, Radio “Liberty”

On September 22, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg discussed to accept the Georgia’s intergovernmental application against Russia or not.

The Strasbourg Court started the process at 11:00 am Tbilisi time. After the three-hour hearing the Court concluded that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will finally decide to start essential discussion of the Georgia’s Suit VS Russia or not within several months.

What were Russia’s arguments against Georgia’s allegations and how Georgian side will defend its position in the Court?

“Georgia VS Russia # 2” – this is the name of the case alleging violation of human rights and basic freedoms guaranteed by Human rights Convention by Russian soldiers during the armed conflict in August, 2008 and during subsequent occupation period. Among allegations is violation of basic norms of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws.

Russian-Georgian armed conflict, which is internationally known as Five-Day War of August, had not been finished yet when on August 11, 2008 Georgia litigated to the Strasbourg Court for the violation of several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. The completed version of the application was submitted to the ECHR early in 2009. However, two years onward, the Court received additional materials from the Government of Georgia.

Although on September 22, quite a large delegation of the Russian party – with 18 members - arrived at the Strasbourg Court at 9:00 am local time, representatives of the applicant Georgian party claim that arguments of their opponent sounded unreasonable and weak in comparison with their accusations.

Georgia’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe Mamuka Zhgenti discussed several arguments of Russian and foreign lawyers hired by the Russian Government with the Radio “Liberty”. Zhgenti said Russian side requested to review the Case Law of the European Court and alleged that it is irrelevant to this particular case.

“They allege that the Court should not consider its previous decisions passed in regard with approximately relevant issues. The second argument of their lawyers was USA’s participation in the military operations and claimed that the USA is not represented at the present court hearing. They provided very obscure arguments and not only we but representatives of other states attending the hearing also got surprised with their allegations. Everybody expected the Russian side to provide more grounded arguments,” said Mamuka Zhgenti.

Lawyer of the International Human Rights Center “Memorial” Kirill Koroteev attended the hearing in the Strasbourg Court. He spoke about another argument of the Russian side during his interview with the Radio “Liberty”: Koroteev clarified that Term “Right to War” has not been used in the international law for over 60 years. However, the Russian Side used the term on September 22. “Russian side spoke about unlimited right to kill; that means, Russian soldiers, in order to protect Russian citizens and militants in South Ossetia, had right to kill. Although, Russian side speaks about “rival soldier”, they mean all murders committed in the territory of South Ossetia.”

Representative of the Georgian delegation at the Strasbourg Court, Deputy Minister of Justice of Georgia Tina Burjaliani underscored in her interview with the Radio “Liberty” that position of the Georgian side - Russia is occupant – is not changed and was grounded by documents. “Russia acted as an aggressor and occupied two regions of Georgia. They totally control those regions and so-called local de-facto agencies are ordinary branches of Russian governmental institutions. We tried to update the Court with complete information from those international reports which prove our allegations.”

Tea Tsulukiani, deputy chair of the Georgian opposition party Free Democrats recalled August 11, 2008 in her interview with the Radio “Liberty”. At that time, she was head of the department at the Strasbourg Court which worked on the applications submitted from Georgian state. Georgia filed the application VS Russia through phone call. “A representative of the Georgian Ministry of Justice called me and said the Ministry is being evacuated because Russian army is approaching Tbilisi. That they are litigating to the Court orally; asked me to receive their oral application and inform the judges of the Court that Georgian nation is ruining,” Tea Tsulukiani recalled.

All in all, we will learn in several months whether the ECHR will start essential discussion of the Georgia’s Application VS Russia or not.

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