Activity Report April 2004
European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights
INTERIM NARRATIVE REPORT
- This report must be completed and signed by the person responsible for the project.
- The information provided below must correspond to the financial information that appears in the financial report.
- Please complete the report using a typewriter or computer (you can find the form at the following address: http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/eidhr/projects_reports_en.htm).
- Please expand the paragraphs as necessary.
- Please refer to the Special Conditions to your agreement and send one copy of the report to the relevant Delegation (if applicable)
- The European Commission will reject any incomplete or badly completed reports.
1.Name of beneficiary of grant and of legal representative:
London Metropolitan University.
2.Name and title of the person responsible for the project:
Philip Leach, Project Director, Senior Lecturer in Law
Bill Bowring, Academic Co-ordinator, Professor of Human Rights and International Law
3.Title of the project:
Strengthening Capacity for Support for Women and Men making Complaints against the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights
4.Reference number of the project:
B7-701/2002/1176)
5.Start date of the reporting period :
5 December 2002
End date of the reporting period :
31 January 2004
6.Target country(ies) or region:
Russian Federation
7.Target beneficiaries &/or target groups[1] (if different) (including numbers of men and women):
The primary target group is the large number of persons who complain of human rights violations in Chechnya. In addition to the cases already lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (see below), there are still many more potential applicants. There are still many thousands of Chechen refugees in Ingushetia, most of whom lost family members and property. Human Rights Watch knows of at least 100 cases of “disappearances”, where there is credible evidence that Russian forces are responsible. At least 20,000 persons have been detained in circumstances in which their fundamental procedural and human dignity rights were violated. More than 60% of the buildings in Chechnya are known to have been destroyed.
The project is currently working on 38 cases, therefore the target beneficiaries presently include 272 individuals, 102 of whom are the applicants themselves as well as 170 of their immediate family members who are victims directly affected by the violation. A further 27 lawyers and human rights activists who attended the training programme held in September 2003, count as another group of target beneficiaries.
A secondary group are Russians in the entire Federation who suffer human rights abuses. These are well-documented by Memorial, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others. They include victims of discrimination (particularly on grounds of ethnic identity), those who were victims of deportation and other abuses during the former Soviet era, and those who advocate alternatives to military service.
The target groups are therefore women and men complaining of violations, primarily those who apply to the Moscow and other regional offices of “Memorial” which aid primarily victims of abuses in the areas of armed conflict and most recently in Chechnya.
Russian NGOs, especially “Memorial”, are a third target group. Memorial is well known in Russia for its highly principled activity, and is ideally placed to deal with applications from all over the country as it has 40 regional offices throughout Russia including offices in Chechnya and Ingushetia.
It is also intended that other NGOs working in Russia in the area of human rights abuses should also be able to benefit from this resource by attending the training sessions and having access to UK lawyers who can advise them on drafting of applications.In this way it is hoped to provide a service to Russian human rights lawyers which will be as widespread as possible.
The majority of the victims which “Memorial” have so far helped to bring applications to Strasbourg have been women who have had their homes destroyed, have lost sons in the civil war or have had other family members who have ’disappeared’.One of the key targets of the project directed through “Memorial” will therefore continue to be women.Another key target for support will be children who have become orphans as a result of the conflicts in Chechnya and other regions.
8.Country (ies) in which the activities take place:
Russia and United Kingdom
A. Compliance with the Grant Agreement
1. Has the project been carried out as foreseen in the terms of reference of the agreement so far? If not, please explain how and why the original proposal has been modified, including the dates that any addenda were requested and approved.
The project has been carried out in accordance with the grant application. However, during the first year of the project, there have been some (relatively minor) delays in the implementation of various activities. The steering committee meetings were scheduled for month two (February 2003) and month six (June 2003). However, as the project developed in the first few months, it was felt that it would be more useful for the project if the steering committees were to be held slightly later in the year. Accordingly, steering committee meetings were held in June and September 2003 (months six and nine).
The first training seminar was originally scheduled for month seven, which fell in July 2003. However, in order to avoid the summer break, when many staff were taking annual leave, this was held over until September 2003. Similarly the UK internship was due to commence in August, but was held over until September. This had a knock-on effect on the Russian internships travelling to London, which took place in December rather then September 2003.
Each of these activities therefore took place within the first 12 months, as originally envisaged.
2. Has the provisional budget of the project been respected so far? If not, please explain any changes that have occurred.
Several changes to the budget were required:
a) One of the three posts for lawyers in the Moscow office was split into two 0.5 posts initially to allow for a senior Memorial Director to oversee the management of the Moscow office and Russia side of the project activities on a part-time basis. Due to the difficulties recruiting for the remaining 0.5 post, the post was offered as full-time for a fixed 1 year period, using funds unspent for the 0.5 post over the first project year (see 1.1.1).
b) We were unable to recruit for the Administrator post in the Moscow office until the salary offered was increased from?292 per month to ?435 (see 1.1.2)
c) The salary levels of human rights activists from Memorial working 0.5 posts had to be decreased ?375.66 to ?300 to reflect actual salaries paid (see 1.1.4)
d) The unit rate of the Academic Co-ordinator was increased by ?65 via transfer from finance staff costs (1.2.5) to reflect actual salaries paid.
e) The fee paid to the Legal Consultant commissioned to train lawyers in the Moscow office for 3 months was reduced to the level commensurate with the experience of the lawyer (see 1.2.7).
f) Per diems for UK staff in Russia was decreased from 28 units to 25 and transferred to ’Visits by Moscow staff to regions’ to better reflect the needs of the project (see 1.3.1.2).
g) Per diem level of ?249 was reduced to ?195 as it was sufficient to cover the living costs of the Legal Consultant. Some of the unspent funds was transferred to ’Moscow staff to UK for training’ to allow for a longer training period and a third Russian lawyer to participate in the internship (see 1.3.2.2).
h) The level of per diems of regional staff to Moscow for training was reduced from ?249 to ?210 as it was sufficient for subsistence costs (see 1.3.2.4).
i) International travel between UK and Moscow (2.1) was amended to include Strasbourg to reflect the aims and activities of the project as indicated in the narrative of the grant application. The budget here was also increased by a transfer of ?1,000 from ’Regional staff to Moscow for training’ (see 2.2.2) and ?1,000 from ’Office furniture in London’ (see 3.4), the costs of which were lower than originally anticipated.
j) The cost of consumables (see 4.2) had been underestimated and a transfer of ?500 from 4.3 (Other services including tel/fax) was required.
k) Expert witness costs was reduced by ?3,000 in the first year as the few expert witness required in the first year worked on a voluntary basis (see 5.3), ?1,000 was transferred to ’Translation’ (see 5.7) as costs were inadvertently left out of the budget in this category which is crucial to the casework, and ?1,000 was transferred to ’Costs of conferences and seminars’ (see 5.9) which was underestimated in the original budget, and a further ?1,000 was transferred to ’Training materials’ (see 5.10).
l) Evaluation costs (see 5.6) were overestimated and accordingly reduced by ?1,000 with ?500 transferred to ’Financial Services’ (see 5.8) to cover bank transfer costs which had been inadvertently left out of the original budget and ?500 to ’Translations’ (see 5.7).
Approval from the above was received by Email dated 4.12.03.
1. Please list all project objectives, and indicate if they remain valid or have been modified.
B. Project Objectives
The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of the long-established Russian Human Rights NGO “Memorial” to provide assistance for women and men in the Russian Federation who complain of violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which Russia ratified in 1998, and to build a sustainable resource for all private individuals, lawyers and NGOs who wish to make use of international human rights protection mechanisms.
The specific objectives are as follows
-To strengthen the capacity of the “Memorial” Human Rights Centre in Moscow, by the provision of premises, administrative staff and additional legally trained advisers
-To strengthen the capacity of a number of its 40 branches, especially in Chechnya and Ingushetia, where most of the refugees from Chechnya are to be found
-To establish an administrative and advice structure in London, based at and organised from the London Metropolitan University, with the support of barristers of the Former Soviet Union group of the Human Rights Committee of the Bar of England and Wales.
-To create a system for drawing on the experience of the barristers of the Bar Human Rights Committee, many of whom have Strasbourg experience, and will work pro bono, as well as experienced solicitors, and NGOs such as Amnesty International, Interights, and others
-To facilitate the giving of assistance by these experienced UK lawyers and NGOs in advising complainants, drafting pleadings, and providing representation at Strasbourg and at in-country fact-finding hearings of the European Court of Human Rights in Russia
-To provide intensive and on-going training to advisers from Moscow and the Russian regions in the practice and procedure of the European Court of Human Rights; this training will focus on “training the trainers” and on cascading throughout the Federation
-In particular, to give practical training in English legal drafting, English being one of the two official languages of the European Court
-To provide UK interns (young qualified lawyers with some Strasbourg experience) for periods of three months in Russia
-To bring Russian lawyers to the UK to acquaint themselves with the experience and present practice of leading UK lawyers and NGOs in human rights litigation at the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, UN Human Rights Committee, and other international instances
-If possible, to enable one or more Russian lawyers to witness appropriate case hearings in Strasbourg
-To create resource “centres of excellence” in Moscow and the Russian regions on which all concerned with complaints under the ECHR and other international instruments, for example complaints under the First Optional Protocol to the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Russia is a party, may draw
-To create and disseminate quality training materials based on the activities noted above
-To create, as part of the existing “Memorial” website (www.memo.ru), a set of pages for the widest public use
-To provide the basis for support for human rights complaints to all international mechanisms by persons from the whole FSEE (Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) area
These objectives, as originally set out in the grant application, have not been modified and remain valid.
C. Project Activities
1. Please list all the activities since the beginning of the project to date. For example:
Activity 1:
Conference at town W with W participants for Y days on Z date
Title of Activity:
Topics covered: A
Reason for modification from planned activity (if applicable)
Assessment of the results of this activity:
(1) Steering Committee
A Steering Committee has been established comprising representatives from Memorial, London Metropolitan University and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England & Wales.
Its membership is as follows:
Professor Bill Bowring (London Metropolitan University)
Peter Carter QC (Bar Human Rights Committee)
Aleksandr Cherkasov (Memorial)
Rupert D’Cruz (Bar Human Rights Committee)
Svetlana Gannushkina (Memorial)
Tatyana Kasatkina (Memorial)
Philip Leach (London Metropolitan University)
Oleg Orlov (Memorial)
Aidan Rose (London Metropolitan University)
Steering Committee meetings were held in Moscow on 22 June 2003 and 15 September 2003 (see the Steering Committee Agendas at Annex A). At both meetings, the Steering Committee was presented, inter alia, with narrative and financial reports relating to the project. The Steering Committee also approved its own terms of reference (Annex B) and a Partnership Agreement (Annex C).
In addition, Steering Committee member Aleksandr Cherkasov visited EHRAC’s office in June 2003.
(2) Staffing
In Moscow, Tatyana Kasatkina the Executive Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre has been over-seeing the project in Russia since its inception. This project funds half of her time. Kirill Koroteev was appointed as a full-time lawyer under the auspices of this project on 1 May 2003. Another lawyer, Dina Vedernikova, was also appointed on 1 May 2003. In July 2003 Ekaterina Kokorina was appointed as Project Manager in Moscow. On 1 January 2004 Ruslan Yandarov (who is Chechen, a former judge, and a practising advocate) was appointed as the third lawyer in the Moscow office.
Five field workers have been appointed in Russia, as follows:
RegionName Date appointed
Perm Roman Maranov15 May 2003
RyazanIrina Ananyeva15 May 2003
PyatigorskElena Samburova15 May 2003
KrasnodarVladimir Gaydash15 May 2003
NazranMedna Abdulkadyrova15 May 2003
Medna Abdulkadyrova subsequently resigned due to the pressures of working in the Chechen region, and her successor, Isa Gandarov, was appointed on 1 September 2003. Roman Maranov resigned on 30 September 2003. The position held by Elena Samburova was terminated as from 31 December 2003.
A replacement for one fieldworker’s position is actively being sought.
Memorial employees based in Chechnya (including Grozny and Urus-Martan) will assist with the Chechen-related casework on an ad hoc basis, in addition to the work carried out by Isa Gandarov from Nazran. Accordingly, instead of appointing a fifth fieldworker, it is proposed that the project will be able to draw on the services of a group of Memorial lawyers and fieldworkers based in Chechnya. It is considered to be very important that there are sufficient staff available to work on the Chechen cases at the European Court.
Five working meetings were held in May and June involving the Memorial Moscow office and the regional field workers, in order to discuss the project in general, the field workers’ job descriptions and their terms of contract.
A number of interns have been working in the Moscow office, carrying out various tasks such as research, including Chris Pool, Armel Rolland and Oksana Vasilieva.
In London both Bill Bowring (Academic Co-ordinator) and Philip Leach (Director) have been over-seeing the UK part of the project since its inception (the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre — “EHRAC”).
The Project Manager and Project Administrator posts were advertised in the Guardian newspaper and on the London Metropolitan University website in December 2002. Shortlisted candidates were interviewed in January 2003 with the assistance of Dr. Svetlana Stephenson, senior lecturer in social policy at London Metropolitan University. As a result of this process, Tina Devadasan was appointed as Project Manager (full-time) in March 2003, and Elena Volkova was appointed as Project Administrator (half-time) in April 2003.
EHRAC has been able to utilise the services of various interns in the London office, including Tom Arrowsmith (an undergraduate law student at the University), Georgina Shelley (a barrister) and various Human Rights LLM students at the University. We have also set up an intern arrangement with Masters students at the University of Surrey, and we have had several postgraduate students from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (see the full list at Annex D).
(3) Premises
In Moscow, new premises separate from the main Memorial office were identified and for which a lease was signed in May 2003. Office equipment was obtained for the new premises which was in use as from 1 August 2003.
In London, an office has been obtained within the University (the Ladbroke House building in Highbury, north London), which houses both the Project Manager and Administrator, and also desks for interns. The office has its own fax machine. Both Bill Bowring and Philip Leach have offices on the same floor of Ladbroke House.
Tina Devadasan, assisted by Elena Volkova, carried out extensive work in establishing the EHRAC office within the University (liaising with the finance department, human resources, information technology advisers etc).
(4) Formal Launch of EHRAC
The EHRAC office in London was formally launched with a lecture by the former British Minister, Lord Frank Judd, on 13 May 2003 at the University. Lord Judd, until recently the Council of Europe Rapporteur for Chechnya, spoke to an audience of representatives from government, the media, human rights organisations, the Law Society and the Bar Human Rights Committee of the continuing cycle of human rights violations being committed during the current conflict in Chechnya. The event was co-sponsored by Amnesty International and Bindman & Partners, a leading firm of solicitors in London dealing with human rights and civil liberties cases.
University Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Chris Topley, introduced the event, linking the work of the new unit with the social justice aspects of the University’s mission statement. The other speakers at the launch were Bill Bowring, Philip Leach and Becky Hess of Amnesty International, which ran a campaign in 2003 focusing on human rights in Russia.
(5) ECHR Casework
A primary focus of the casework to date has been carried out in relation to the first six cases concerning Chechnya to be declared admissible by the European Court of Human Rights (in December 2002) (“the first six cases”).
Final written pleadings in these cases were drafted by Kirill Koroteev in Memorial’s Moscow office, assisted from London by Bill Bowring and Philip Leach, and were submitted to the European Court in April 2003. On 8 September 2003, further observations were submitted to the court on behalf of the applicants, in response to extensive disclosure of documentation by the Russian government. These were drafted by Kirill Koroteev, again with the assistance of Bill Bowring and Philip Leach. In February 2004, EHRAC was informed that judgments are being drafted by the European Court in these first six cases.
The Moscow and London offices have been liaising as to questions of strategy, procedure and substantive law in relation to the first six cases since the inception of the project — a meeting was held in Moscow in January 2003 to discuss the first six cases. Professor ChristopherMilroy, a Home Office forensic pathologist, based at Sheffield University, has prepared a report for the first six cases, on instructions from EHRAC. Expert ballistics advice has been sought in another case concerning the bombing of a village in Chechnya.
Copies of the files relating to 27 other cases (concerning alleged Convention violations in Chechnya) which have already been lodged with the European Court have been sent by Moscow to London, where extensive work has been carried out in having each of the files translated, in many instances utilising the support of volunteer translators.
These 27 cases already lodged with the European Court (aside from the first six cases) have not as yet been communicated by the Court to the Russian Government. Members of the legal team are being asked to review these files and advise on matters of law, strategy and procedure. It is anticipated that where, for example, further witness statements are needed in order to establish the applicant’s allegations to the required standard of proof, the field workers can begin to seek to collect the necessary additional evidence.
Cases have been referred for advice to, inter alios, Matthew Happold (Lecturer in Law, University of Nottingham), Professor Douwe Korff (London Metropolitan University), Tim Otty (barrister, 20 Essex Street Chambers & Bar Human Rights Committee), Jemima Stratford (barrister, Brick Court Chambers & Bar Human Rights Committee), Samantha Knights (3/4 South Square Chambers and Bar Human Rights Committee) and Miriam Carrion (36 Bedford Row & Bar Human Rights Committee).
In May and June 2003 casework meetings were held involving the Memorial Moscow office and the regional field workers. In May Roman Maranov (Perm) and Oleg Mironov (the Moscow lawyer) met with Memorial Moscow to discuss cases concerning alternative service. In June Memorial Moscow met with Vladimir Gaydash (Krasnodar) and Irina Ananyeva (Ryazan) to discuss potential ECHR cases.
Casework meetings (to discuss the range of cases) involving representatives from the Moscow and London offices were held in September (Moscow) and December (London) 2003.
EHRAC has also been instructed by Chechen villagers in another ECHR case concerning alleged killings and village destruction in 1999. This case was introduced to the European Court in July 2003.
Bill Bowring and Philip Leach have continued to advise (primarily by telephone or e-mail) a number of lawyers and NGOs in Russia on other ECHR cases throughout this period. These include a ’disappearance’ case from Chechnya in which the applicant is represented by the Chechnya Justice Initiative.
Towards the end of the reporting period, a number of existing ECHR cases were being referred to EHRAC/Memorial. One such case, Fadeyeva v Russia, which was declared admissible in October 2003, concerns the effects on the applicant’s right to respect for her private and family life and home of severe pollution emanating from a steel plant in the city of Cherepovets. In this case, we have brought in environmental experts from the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) in the United States, who will provide an expert opinion which will be submitted to the European Court. The Court has decided that there will be an oral hearing on the merits of the case.
One case, Klyakhin v Russia, in which the applicant had been representing himself, was referred to EHRAC (post-admissibility) by a Russian lawyer within the Court Registry, as the Court rules require legal representation after a case is declared admissible. The case concerns alleged violations of the applicant’s rights under Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In total, EHRAC has taken on 38 ECHR cases during the reporting period. A database of all cases has been established in the Moscow office, which records key details on each case, including the current status. This database is being used by the Moscow and London offices to maintain an accurate and up to date record of the cases.
In response to increasingly serious reports of intimidation by the authorities of Chechen applicants to the European Court in the winter of 2003, EHRAC, Memorial and the Chechnya Justice Initiative came together to produce detailed memoranda concerning such incidents. In December 2003, Philip Leach, Dina Vedernikova and Kirill Koroteev met with one of the European Court Section Registrars, Mr Soren Nielsen, and, separately, with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, to consider what action could be taken in relation to the reports of intimidation. In January 2004, follow-up letters were sent to Mr Nielsen and Mr Gil-Robles on behalf ofEHRAC, Memorial and the Chechnya Justice Initiative. Further action to protect the applicants, their relatives and witnesses in Chechnya is being pursued.
(6) UK Legal team
Members of the Bar Human Rights Committee and the Law Society are being actively ’recruited’ to join EHRAC’s legal team, and to assist with ECHR casework and/or human rights training. Cases have been referred to practising and/or academic human rights lawyers, as set out above.
(7) Legal Consultant in Moscow
An advertisement for a legal consultant to work with the Memorial lawyers in Moscow for three months from September 2003 was widely circulated in the UK and internationally in May. A copy of the advertisement is at Annex E to this report.
In July 2003 an experienced human rights barrister, Miriam Carrion, was appointed as Legal Consultant to the project in Moscow. From 8 September until 5 December 2003 Miriam Carrion worked in the project’s Moscow office, providing advice and support to the Moscow lawyers and to the regional fieldworkers on a wide range of issues, including advice on evidence, ECHR jurisprudence, drafting pleadings, and case and file administration and management.
(8) Legal Training
From 16th-18th September 2003 an intensive three day training seminar was held in Moscow for 19 Memorial staff and 6 delegates from other Moscow-based NGOs which bring ECHR cases.
The training sought to provide practical advice i
