Russia: A Complex Web of Pretrial Detention

PRI-00132Russia’s a tough country to be detained in.  Pretrial detention is common.  And pretrial rights and remedies are on the books.  Limits exist.  But a massive question of enforcement remains.  The European Court of Human Rights has a large number of cases finding the Russian government violated basic human rights obligations by detaining persons awaiting trial for excessively long periods of time and in poor conditions.  We’ve laid out the letter of the law in our most recent Country Profile for Russia.
Our experience in Russia has been that the authorities will find hooks within the law to keep persons detained.  If the maximum detention period is met, additional charges are lodged to “start” a “new” detention period.  The diplomatic relationship between Russia and the United States makes pressing for pretrial detention rights difficult – we’ve heard that on the State Department’s list of 100 priority items with Russia, pretrial detention rights are #101.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email