'Dima Yakovlev law' played huge positive role and ECHR decision won't change Russia's position on adoption - deputy Batalina
MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) - The politicized decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the 'Dima Yakolvev law' is not grounds for a revision of this law and will not stop Russia's adoption policies, Olga Batalina, deputy secretary of the General Council of the party United Russia and a State Duma deputy, said.
"There are no grounds to speak about a reversal or revision of the 'Dima Yakolvev law.' It played a huge positive role in the unification of our society in the interests of orphaned children and the process of reducing the number of orphans living in establishments that we saw in the past few years is a direct result of the law and the subsequent presidential decree, which set key tasks in the sphere of national adoption," Batalina said in the State Duma on Wednesday.
A total of 119,000 orphans lived in establishments for orphans of all types when the 'Dima Yakolvev law' was adopted, and now this number has gone down to 60,000, she said.
"However, it's not a reason for us to stop, protection of the interests of orphaned children is our common national task and I am confident that no politicized decisions in this process will stop us or slow us down," she said.
The number of children adopted inside the country increases every year and international adoption "is slowly becoming history," she said. In 2015, 58,000 children were adopted inside the country and 746 were adopted outside it. The adoption of children with disabilities is also actively developing. In 2015, Russian families adopted 1,903 children with disabilities and 77 children with disabilities were adopted from 12 various countries, she said.
Commenting on the ECHR decision, Batalina said it would be wrong to say that the court has found the 'Dima Yakovlev law' to be illegitimate. "On the contrary, the ECHR in its decision emphasized the sovereign right of Russia to independently regulate adoption issues," she said.
The ECHR has also stated that countries have no obligations to provide children for international adoption under international law.
"Moreover, the ECHR said in its decision that the rights of children in this situation were not violated. So whose rights were violated? The ECHR said the rights of American parents whose adoption opportunities were stopped by the law that entered into force on January 1, 2013 at different stages, even before claims were filed in courts," she said.
The court found that the rights of Americans were violated in only one thing, namely, that Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination, was violated because the restrictions on adoption were imposed on only one country - the U.S., she said.