The Memorial International Human Rights Centre asked the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to follow up on failure to execute the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments issued in Alexey Pichugin’s cases

May 4, 2020

The Memorial International Human Rights Centre asked the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to follow up on [Russia’s] failure to execute the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments issued in Yukos Oil Company’s former internal economic security department head Alexey Pichugin’s cases.

In its two judgments issued in 2012 and 2017 in Pichugin’s cases, ECHR found violations of the right to a fair trial (Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) during criminal proceedings against Alexey Pichugin. When ECHR establishes a violation of this right, the most effective means of redress is to annul the verdict and hold a trial de novo that corrects the initial trial’s shortcomings.

However, as regards Pichugin, the Russian Supreme Court refused to do it both times. After the first ECHR ruling, the RF SC said that Article 6 violations found by ECHR “are not significant and do not cause court decisions in his case to become unlawful, unfounded or unfair.” As regards the second ECHR judgment, the RF Supreme Court said “the factual circumstances of the crimes, the role and degree of participation in the crimes, as well as Pichugin’s guilt in committing these crimes were established on the basis of the court’s objective and unbiased assessment of the totality of the evidence in the case file.”

The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, which oversees the execution of ECHR judgments, has examined Pichugin’s case several times and plans to review it again in June 2020.

As there are essentially no legal mechanisms in Russia to retry the former “Yukos man’s” case, the Committee of Ministers called on Russia in December 2019 to “consider adopting measures as soon as possible to ensure [Pichugin’s] release, and in this context noted anew the possibilities offered by a pardon.”
In November 2018, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for Pichugin’s “immediate release.”

Pichugin applied for pardon in 2015 and again 2017, but was denied. He reapplied on March 10, 2020 but has yet to receive a reply.

In the document sent to the Committee of Ministers, Memorial requests the Committee to ask the ECHR [to determine], per Convention Article 46(4), whether the situation at hand violates [Russia’s] obligation to abide by ECHR judgments. [Such infringement] proceedings were introduced in 2010 by Protocol No. 14 to the Convention, and, according to the explanatory note to the Protocol, the proceedings “should be brought only in exceptional circumstances.”

To date, the Committee of Ministers brought the Article 46(4) proceeding just once – in Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, resulting in Mammadov’s parole.

Memorial expressed hope that since Alexey Pichugin’s situation is exceptional, the proceeding will be brought in his case as well, and also with a positive outcome.

After two criminal trials held in 2005 and 2007, Alexey Pichugin was convicted of organizing several murders and attempted murders, allegedly in Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s interests. Pichugin, who pled not guilty, was sentenced to life in prison. Memorial recognized Alexey Pichugin as a political prisoner.

The full text of the document can be found here.

Source: Memorial,The last resort for the release of Alexey Pichugin, May 4, 2020