CoE Committee of Ministers to address Russia’s refusal to pay €10mln for deportation of Georgians

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will discuss the deportation case of Georgians from Russia in 2006 in its upcoming meeting, after Russia declined to pay 10 million EUR to Georgian citizens, a fine set by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in January 2019.

Russia had three months’ time to pay the fine. The term expired on April 30, 2019.

The Georgian Justice Ministry appealed to the Committee of Ministers on May 2, 2019 to help make Russia pay the fine.

The committee will discuss the case under enhanced supervision and will also hold debates. The committee will request explanations from Russia on why it declined to pay the fine [as Russia did not even officially named reasons behind the refusal],” the Georgian Justice Ministry says.

Georgia says that Russia must be held accountable for its illegal activities. Photo: Justice Ministry press office. 

On January 31, 2019 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights announced its judgment in the case Georgia v. Russia regarding the arrest, detention and collective expulsion of Georgian nationals from Russia in the autumn of 2006.

The verdict said Russia had to pay Georgia €10,000,000 for non-pecuniary damage suffered by a group of at least 1,500 Georgian nationals.

The Georgian government says that between 2006 and 2007 more than 4,600 expulsion orders were issued by Russian authorities against Georgian nationals.

More than 2,300 were detained and forcibly expelled and the remaining left the country by their own resources.

The mass deportation was preceded by the arrest of four Russian officers on charges of espionage by the previous government of Georgia in September 2006. In revenge, later in 2006 large numbers of Georgian nationals were mistreated in Russia.