Imminent risk of irreparable harm: Why failure to protect Russians fleeing the Putin regime would be a serious blow to the Court’s reputation

In December 2023, the European Court of Human Rights rejected two requests for interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court in the case of a Russian dissident, who is to be returned to the Russian Federation by Hungary.

Read our argument why such cases risk a serius blow to the Strasbourg Court’s reputation on Strasbourg Observers – written by Eszter Benkő (legal officer at Hungarian Helsinki Committee), Tamás Fazekas (our attorney-at-law), and Zsolt Szekeres (our senior legal officer).

We believe that when refusing to protect the applicant from being returned to Russia, the European Court of Human Rights missed a possibility to take a clear and principled stance on this important issue. The Russian Government may have turned away from the Convention, but not all Russians did; those who defy the Putin regime and oppose the war on Ukraine risk paying an extremely high price. In this scenario, the Court should not be a bystander.