The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is not based on facts and goes beyond its competence, a source from the Russian Justice Ministry told Sputnik on Saturday, citing a letter from the ministry to the ECHR
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th February, 2021) The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is not based on facts and goes beyond its competence, a source from the Russian Justice Ministry told Sputnik on Saturday, citing a letter from the ministry to the ECHR.
According to the source, there is no evidence to prove that Navalny's life was in danger in the pre-trial detention center, and the opposition figure himself never complained about the conditions of his detention.
The ministry asked the ECHR on Saturday to reconsider the court's decision on Navalny.
"[ECHR's decision] was adopted without taking into account the universal principles of openness and legal certainty of the proceedings, equality and adversarial nature of the parties, in the absence of any evidence of a violation of his [Navalny's] rights in the pre-trial detention center, including in relation to threats to life and health," the ministry's letter read, according to the source.
In addition, the letter read that the information provided by the ministry in a timely manner on the conditions of Navalny's detention "was ignored by the ECHR, despite the absence of fair objections from the representatives."
"The decision of the ECHR on the immediate release of the applicant [Navalny] is not based on facts, violates the principle of subsidiarity and goes beyond the competence of the ECHR," the ministry's letter read, according to the source.
On February 16, the Strasbourg court announced a decision to call on the Russian government to release Navalny, to whom a Moscow court replaced a suspended sentence with a real one in a fraud case in early February. Moscow called the decision an attempt to interfere in internal affairs and put pressure on the court. According to the last year's amendments to the Russian Constitution, Russia fulfills its international obligations only if they do not contradict Russian legislation. On Saturday, lawyer Olga Mikhailova said that the Moscow City Court had rejected an application for interim measures to enforce the ECHR decision to release Navalny.
