Russian Foreign Ministry: No reasons for amending, repealing adoptions ban law
MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax) - Moscow sees no reasons to amend the law banning the adoption of Russian children by U.S. nationals, also known informally as the 'Dima Yakovlev Law', in light of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgment finding it unlawfully discriminating against prospective parents, Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov said.
"We still don't see any reasons for its amendment or repeal," Dolgov said to Interfax in commenting on the ECHR judgment.
"In keeping with Article 71 of the Russian Constitution, the enactment and amendment of federal laws is exclusively within the Russian Federation's jurisdiction," he said.
The said legislation "was enacted as a lawful and legitimate countermeasure against gross and massive violations by U.S. nationals of rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests of Russian minors adopted by American families," he said.
"There is a huge assembly of evidence that our children were subjected to torture, cruel and degrading treatment in U.S. families, which often led to lethal outcomes. Judicial proceedings dealing with beatings or killings of small Russians in the U.S. resulted in formal sentences, and in some cases those guilty were freed right in the courtroom," he said.
Negligence that led to violations of Russian children's rights was also acknowledged by the U.S. Department of State, which remained voiceless as to our requests and appeals for assistance and which basically assumed an extremely passive, if not destructive, position on children's cases under Barack Obama," he said.
"We haven't noticed a desire or ability of U.S. authorities to take the necessary measures to fairly punish those guilty and preventing such situations in the future. This is the main reason for enacting the law banning adoptions, which has fully justified itself," Dolgov said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the ECHR issued a judgment finding the law banning adoption of Russian children by U.S. nationals unlawful, thus supporting 45 U.S. claimants who had been denied adoptions of Russian children even though they had already started the procedure.