Response to Requests for Legal Assistance has been the core program of the Center de la protection international (“CPI”) from its inception. CPI receives and responds to requests for legal assistance from individuals and organizations by mail, in-person meetings, and a telephone hotline. As a part of this program, CPI has been providing advice in over 120 cases per month. Our electronic data base contains almost 40,000 requests, and this number continues to grow. We receive requests from various countries, such as Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and others. Everyone who turns to CPI receives, at a minimum, information on CPI’s activities and procedures for lodging applications with adjudicatory international human rights bodies, and in many cases, individual consultation and/or legal representation. As a result, CPI has submitted more than 1000 applications on behalf of victims of human rights abuses with adjudicatory international human rights bodies, such as the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee, over 500 of which are still pending.
Strategic Litigation at Domestic and International Levels has been conducted by CPI from its inception. In terms of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is strategic litigation program encompasses the following categories of cases:
Article 2: cases concerning deprivations of the right to life. This category includes the so-called North Caucasus cases or cases of forcible and other “disappearances” of persons; deaths of military servicemen or police officers; casualties as a result of counter-terrorist operations; deaths caused by third parties;
Article 3: cases concerning disregard of the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, such as torture and cruelty in police custody and places of detention; abusive treatment of participants in peaceful assemblies, or by third parties;
Article 5: cases concerning infringements of the right to liberty and security of person, such as detentions in criminal and administrative proceedings; detention of the mentally ill and subjects of extradition or deportation proceedings;
Article 6: cases concerning violations of the right to a fair trial in adjudicatory proceedings, whether criminal, civil, administrative, or commercial. This category encompasses all aspects of the right to just adjudication, including equality of arms, representation by counsel, participation in hearings and other court proceedings, etc.
Article 8: cases concerning intrusions on the right to private and family life, correspondence and home. This category involves the rights of parents and their children; the rights of orphans and potential adoptive parents; the rights of prisoners and their relatives, such as the right to family visits, privacy of prisoners’ correspondence with their lawyers and international human rights bodies; the rights of persons and families facing eviction from their homes, etc.
Article 10: cases concerning infringements of the right to freedom of expression, and not only of journalists and mass media, but also of ordinary individuals, social leaders, human rights defenders, and NGOs who are subjected to persecution and interference with their exercise of free expression.
Article 11: cases involving restrictions of the right to freedom of assembly and association, above all violations of the rights of activists and journalists during protests, demonstrations, rallies, and other public actions; persecution of NGOs, particularly under the so-called Foreign Agents law;
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1: cases involving the right to private property, mainly the rights of bona fide buyers whose property is seized by the authorities.
Execution of the European Court of Human Rights’ Judgments is a program launched by CPI in 2012. CPI pursues the execution of the European Court’s judgments in individual cases at the domestic level, monitors the status of the execution with the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. In addition, CPI prepares reports on execution of the European Court’s judgments with respect to general and individual measures for the Committee of Ministers and presents such reports for examination at the Committee’s sessions. CPI has also prepared a detailed guide for NGOs on drafting observations concerning the implementation of general measures for submission to the Committee of Ministers. Finally, the Center cooperates with the UN Follow-Up Committee and submits opinions on specific human rights issues to specialized UN bodies.
Strasburg Defence of Defenders – CPI conducts a program for the defense of human rights defenders, activists, journalists and lawyers. As part of this program, CPI has established a “hotline” and offers counseling and representation at both domestic and international levels. This program has attracted the cooperation of various global human rights organizations, including the International Commission of Jurists. Another special activity of the Strasbourg Defence of Defenders program is providing a defense to civil society activists in connection with their arrests and persecution for participation in peaceful actions such as pickets, protests and rallies.
Educational Programs: CPI offers a number of educational programs, as a rule, for lawyers and advocates from different countries, conducted in Russian as well as English. CPI’s educational programs include the following:
- Training Course for Lawyers Engaged in the Field of the European Protection of Human Rights – the goal of this project is to educate approximately 25 Russian lawyers per year in effective use of the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court’s procedure and case-law precedent both in making applications to the European Court and in their everyday efforts to protect human rights before the domestic courts in Russia. Over 400 lawyers and advocates have already been trained under this program.
- Teaching Effective presentation of Precedent-Setting Cases before the European Court of Human Rights – this program has been conducted by CPI since September 2007. Its aim is to bring together lawyers and advocates from post-Soviet states to share their experience and best practices in strategic litigation before international adjudicatory human rights bodies. This program, entailing both distance education and in-person participation in two one-week training sessions in Strasbourg a year, has been preparing approximately 20 experts from different countries in the field of human rights annually.
- Access to Justice and Defense of Activists and Journalists in Russia is an educational program carried out by CPI since 2015. It seeks to educate activists and journalists, as well as lawyers representing them, in the application of international standards in Russia internally so as to more effectively defend the rights of activists and journalists when facing – persecution by the authorities
