Yet another constitutional judge casts doubt on acceptability of Justice Ministry query in Yukos case
ST. PETERSBURG. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Russian Constitutional Court judge Konstantin Aranovsky has expressed doubt over the acceptability of a query the Russian Justice Ministry sent to the court in relation to a ruling in the Yukos case.
"The Justice Ministry query allows it to be construed as if the Constitutional Court of Russia is to verify an act of European justice or, like an arbiter, judge differences between the applicant and the ECHR [European Court of Human Rights]. But constitutional justice has no legal grounds for such a review or arbitration, nor is it under obligation to give an assessment of either European justice or the behavior of a Russian representative, correct their flaws, resolve a dispute about facts and qualifications, and put its understanding of the Convention above the ECHR's interpretations," Aranovsky wrote in a special opinion published on the Court's website.
"On this, the Constitutional court is under no obligation to rely on anything other than what the ECHR declared as being established, presumable or unproved. The filer of the query is aware of that and thus expected not so much a disqualification of the ECHR act as a recognition by the Constitutional Court of his procedural position," the judge wrote.
Aranovsky has disagreed with a whole host of arguments set out in the Justice Ministry's query. In particular, the ministry appealed to "social statehood" which, it said, does not allow court rulings to be enforced if that would prevent the state from spending money on social needs.
"This is strange, it is as if the burden of social spending gave the state immunity from the court," the constitutional judge said.
Aranovsky also disagreed with the Ministry's suggestion that the Constitutional Court should recognize the ECHR judgment as being against Russian laws. According to Aranovsky, Russia, too, has no right to depart from the jus cogens principle of the unacceptability of deviation from the norms of international law.
On January 19 the Russian Constitutional Court found the ECHR decision awarding over 1.8 billion euros to ex-Yukos shareholders unenforceable. The Russian court's ruling is deemed to have taken effect and cannot be appealed.
Later another Constitutional Court judge, Vladimir Yaroslavtsev, published a special opinion on the ruling, where he disagreed with the acceptability of the Justice Ministry query to the Constitutional Court.
