Supreme Court refuses to inquire into Chechen referendum

The "For Human Rights" Movement on September 4 suffered yet another defeat in its "battle" with the president and the Central Election Commission. The human rights group was trying - through the Supreme Court of Russia -- to challenge the legality of the constitutional referendum in Chechnya held on March 23. Today the Supreme Court has, for the second time, refused to accept their application for consideration.

The complaint lodged on behalf of the movement submits that the referendum in Chechnya could not be treated as legal for many reasons. For example, Russian legislation forbids to hold referendums in conditions of war or state of emergency. Though formally there is no war nor state of emergency in Chechnya, everyone inside and outside the borders of Russia knows what is the genuine situation there. Checkpoints on the road, commandant's offices empowered with functions of government bodies etc. Not to say about armed clashes. The federal authorities have the right to call only nationwide referendums. But in subjects of the Russian Federation such initiative should come from local authorities. No court has as yet stripped the Chechen president-elect (Maskhadov) or the Chechen parliament of their powers. Same goes for the Chechen Constitution, it also has not been abolished. Hence, arguments of the human rights group are not political but legal based entirely on Russian law.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court refused in July to accept their complaint. Speaking plain, their reason was: "It's unclear whose rights specifically have been violated and whose interests you are defending."

But the human rights defenders are quite competent in legal terms. As for whose interests they defend, Ruslan Badalov, a resident of Grozny, has personally requested them to defend his interests as a citizen who, in his own words, has the constitutional right to take part in a real referendum not a 'farce'.

The "For Human Rights Movement" appealed then to the Supreme Court's cassational collegium. The hearing was held on September 4. From the very first moment it took some odd turn. The Court began to rummage whether a civic group has the right to defend interests of an unspecified circle of people. While the law "On Public Associations" reads unambiguously that a public organization does have the right to defend interests of other citizens. But judges of the Supreme Court apparently looked for some specific wording in this law, i.e. 'unspecified circle of people'. With no such wording in the law, the Supreme Court decided, for the second time, not to accept the human rights application for consideration.

What is the difference between 'other citizens' and 'unspecified circle of people' will be perhaps decided by judges in Strasbourg. Yevgeny Ikhlov, a leader of the movement, said they might think of taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

[04.09.2003 21:08] Andrei Antonov/Prima News Agency