Judicial standards in Russia under scrutiny

The Financial Times reports that Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, special rapporteur for the legal affairs and human rights committee of the Council of Europe, the inter-governmental human rights organisation, said Russia was having ‘great difficulties’ in fulfilling the standards to which it was bound by the European Convention on Human Rights. She said there was a ‘political background’ to the case brought by the authorities against Khodorkovsky, and she highlighted a series of concerns that prevented him and his co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, from receiving a fair trial. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger also expressed concern about the related case brought by the authorities against Alexei Pichugin, a senior security official who worked for Khodorkovsky, whose jury trial on murder charges is being held in secret. Full report in the Financial Times