Recommendation 1922 (2010) Final version

Legal remedies for human rights violations in the North Caucasus region

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 22 June 2010 (21st Sitting) (see Doc. 12276, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Marty; and Doc. 12301, opinion of the Political Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mrs Brasseur). Text adopted by the Assembly on 21 June 2010 (21st Sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 1738 (2010) on legal remedies for human rights violations in the North Caucasus region and reminds the Committee of Ministers that it regards the situation in the North Caucasus region, particularly in the Chechen Republic, Ingushetia and Dagestan, as the most serious and most delicate situation from a standpoint of human rights and the rule of law in the entire area covered by the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5).

2. The Assembly therefore invites the Committee of Ministers to:

2.1. pay the utmost attention to the development of the human rights situation in the North Caucasus;

2.2. in enforcing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) concerning this region, emphasise the prompt and complete elucidation of the cases in which the Court has ascertained an absence of effective investigation;

2.3. consider creating, within the Council of Europe and with the collaboration of non-governmental organisations working in this field, a record-keeping system for the witness statements, documents and evidence substantiating human rights violations committed in the region. The Assembly firmly believes that genuine, lasting conciliation can only be attained through an effort of recollection and truth.

3. The Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers assign itself the monitoring of the Russian Federation’s commitments concerning the state of democracy, human rights and the rule of law as regards the situation in the North Caucasus (Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on compliance with commitments accepted by member states of the Council of Europe of 10 November 1994, paragraph 1, third indent).