We translated into Russian the full text of the ECHR judgment in the Kirovles case, together with the separate opinion of several judges (including Russia’s representative).
Legal English is quite difficult, and there were many differing interpretations and unclear passages. At times, different media outlets wrote things about this judgment that were directly contradictory.
I would especially like to draw the attention of lawyers and journalists to what may be the most important point in this judgment: the ECHR expressed its view on “preclusion à la russe” (the Russian practice of treating facts established in one case as automatically binding in another).
It has become the main way of perverting judicial procedure: first they find a provocateur (or simply intimidate someone) who “admits guilt,” and that person is tried under a special procedure without any examination of the evidence. Then innocent people are hauled into court and told, “preclusion” — the crime in your case has already been proven by a court judgment that has entered into legal force.
The ECHR made it clear that such convictions are unlawful and cannot be regarded as judicial proceedings.
This opens the way to the review of a large number of political cases. For example, in the Bolotnaya case (the prosecution following the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests), in the part concerning Udaltsov and Razvozzhayev, the court relied on the “preclusion” created by the provocateur and police informant Lebedev, who had “admitted guilt” and was soon released.