Tbilisi: The Georgian justice ministry announced on Saturday that the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers “sternly called” Russia to submit a “full-fledged, detailed” action plan for the implementation of the 2021 decision of the European Court of Human Rights and to begin taking effective action to remove the primary cause of the violations, ongoing occupation, and to prevent the further recurrence of human rights violations in future.
The respondent state, Russia still has an “unconditional obligation” to strictly implement the court’s decision, which the committee “fully supported,” according to the Georgian side at the meeting. The Georgian side emphasised the importance of the committee’s decision and noted that even though Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe had been terminated.
The committee stressed the “severity and scale” of the documented violations and expressed “deep concern” that Russia has not yet permitted ethnic Georgian citizens that were internally displaced, to return to their homes in occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali, simultaneously urging Russia to enact some “effective measures” towards the cause.
The court issued its ruling on the so-called “war case” on January 21, 2021, finding that Russia had violated “massive” human rights during and after the 2008 war with Georgia while “exercising effective control” over the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia).
As the court said, Russia violated the following articles:
The right to life (Article 2), Prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 3), The right to liberty and security (Article 5),The right to protection of private and family life (Article 8), Protection of property (Article 1 of Additional Protocol 1) and Freedom of movement (Article 2 of Protocol No. 4)
