European rights body urges Putin to reform the judiciary

Reuters/MoscowA leading European human rights body urged President Vladimir Putin yesterday to overhaul Russia’s creaking judicial system, long criticised as vulnerable to political meddling and as an obstacle to business.The appeal by the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe follows international criticism of Putin over the conviction of a number of his opponents, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny and members of the Pussy Riot protest group.“Substantial reforms should continue in order to remedy systemic deficiencies in the administration of justice and strengthen the independence ... of the judiciary,” Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said in his report. The report, by a body representing 47 countries including Russia, did not mention any specific court cases.The Kremlin denies using judges for political ends but the report said that they were susceptible to political pressures.“Judges are vulnerable to political signals. When high-ranking political officials give signals and make comments on cases, many (judges) take it as a sign of where they should go,” Muiznieks, a Latvian, told Reuters by telephone.He said many Russian judges also still saw themselves in their former Soviet-era role as defenders of the state and considered acquittals to be a sign of failure.Russia has paid little heed to past criticism of its record on the rule of law or human rights from the Council of Europe or other bodies.Putin often accuses Western nations of hypocrisy, saying they also fall short on human rights standards.The Council of Europe report criticised a system that allows state prosecutors “wide discretionary powers” and said that defence lawyers provided for defendants are often unable to protect their interests. Fewer than 1% of cases end in acquittal.It also drew attention to the failure of local authorities to investigate crimes thoroughly in Russia’s turbulent North Caucasus, where leaders loyal to Moscow are accused of using strong-arm tactics to clamp down on an Islamist insurgency.Foreign investors have long urged Russia to reform its judiciary to make it easier to do business.In the summer, the president tried to correct failures in the legal system with an amnesty for entrepreneurs, many of them jailed on trumped-up charges stemming from business disputes. But critics said such measures did not tackle the underlying problems of corruption or flaws in the legal system.