Adding to the symbolism, the expulsion comes almost exactly 30 years after Russia first applied to join the Council of Europe and its landmark Convention on Human Rights. On May 7, 1992, just a few months after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new democracies in its place, the then Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev arrived at the Palace of Europe to apply and usher in the historic day of “the return of Russia to its special and rightful place in as a great power in the family of European peoples. His Western colleagues reacted with enthusiasm, noting that the admission of Russia, Europe’s largest country, would finally give the organization “the truly pan-European dimension that its founders dreamed of.”
After a difficult accession process, Russia was accepted by an overwhelming majority of European legislators in January 1996. Addressing fellow heads of state at next year’s European summit, Russian President Boris Yeltsin affirmed that “we are moving closer to creating a new and larger Europe without dividing lines, a Europe where no country will dictate its will to others.”
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This promise was not destined to come true – and it was Yeltsin’s successor in the Kremlin who set out to undermine the basic principles of the Council of Europe. In defiance of Russia’s commitments, Putin shut down independent media, imprisoned opponents, rigged elections, tamed parliament, subjugated the courts, and violated fundamental rights such as freedom of assembly. Internal repression was followed by external aggression when the Kremlin attacked neighbors (and other Council of Europe member states) Georgia and Ukraine, de facto seizing territories from the former and formally annexing parts of the latter.
However, the Council refrained from excluding Russia, partly at the urging of Russian democrats (including the author of this article). After the neutralization of internal democratic mechanisms, the institutions of the Council of Europe – primarily the European Court of Human Rights – provided Russian citizens with the only remedy left to us. Over the years, the court has ruled on thousands of Russian cases, including those politically sensitive to the Kremlin, such as the arrests of anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, the poisoning of FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, and the state-initiated looting of Yukos. oil company. And while the Putin government refused to comply with these rulings, they still set a vital standard of truth—a goal of justice in its own right.
The Council of Europe has also provided important oversight mechanisms in the form of special reports to its Parliamentary Assembly – most notably on the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and the growing crisis regarding political prisoners in Russia.
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Russian citizens have now lost this protection. In a shocking contrast to previous understanding that the cases already pending will be closed, the European Court announced this week that it is suspending all pending Russian claims – more than 18,000 of them. Exclusion from the Council of Europe also paves the way for the reintroduction of the death penalty, which was suspended under Russia’s EU accession commitments in 1996, a possibility already mentioned by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s security council.
But when I addressed members of the Parliamentary Assembly this week — following devastating reports of cluster bombing of residential areas across Ukraine, deliberate targeting of civilians and the heartbreaking news of the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child in a Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol – I honestly told them that I no longer feel any moral right to oppose the expulsion.
As a result, a decision was made at the meeting. unanimous, 216 votes to 0. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s hasty letter to the Soviet announcing his “voluntary withdrawal” could not deceive anyone. Russia was expelled by the common will of all other European nations, a tragic and logical conclusion to two decades of Putin’s autocratic rule.
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The only precedent for such an action was the withdrawal of Greece in 1969 after a military coup. This exile was short-lived: the country was re-admitted in 1974 after the restoration of democracy. During this week’s debate, many European lawmakers expressed optimism that the decision on Russia would be just as reversible. “I hope we can nonetheless look forward to tomorrow, however difficult, to look beyond this desolation,” said Damien Cottier of Switzerland, who chairs the Assembly’s influential legal committee. “If Russia is leaving the Council of Europe today because her government is keeping her away, let’s be sure that one day she will return, because Europe is her home and her history.”
One day, I know we’ll raise that flag again.