On March 23, the House of Human Rights hosted a field meeting of the interregional public organization «National Club (Council) of Honored Lawyers», dedicated to strengthening supranational human rights mechanisms in the context of Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe.

The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova, opening the meeting, noted that despite the years of productive cooperation between Russia and the Council of Europe, as well as a number of progressive decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, including those relating to the ban on placing «cells» in courts, counteraction to domestic violence, reasonable terms of legal proceedings and many others, the politicization of human rights and the practice of applying double standards began to be seen in the actions of this institution, which only gained momentum over time.

As the Federal Ombudsman emphasized, in the context of Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe, it is necessary to strengthen interstate regional human rights integration and create alternative supranational mechanisms for promoting and protecting human rights and freedoms, excluding the politicization of these issues.

As one of the measures, Tatyana Moskalkova named the activation of the CIS Human Rights Commission, whose competence includes consideration of individual and collective applications of any persons and non-governmental organizations on issues related to the violation of human rights.

According to the Commissioner, the unprecedented scale of Russophobia and discrimination against Russian citizens and compatriots abroad indicate that the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is no longer observed on a number of fundamental provisions. In this regard, the federal ombudsman plans to appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about the destruction of the global human rights protection system.

The participants of the event agreed on the adoption of prompt measures aimed at preventing the defeat in the rights of the Russian-speaking population. Among other things, proposals were made to create quasi-judicial and specialized bodies in various areas of public life in order to ensure proper protection of the rights of Russian citizens after Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe.