The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has published a statement expressing concern that “government leaders distort justice when they interfere in individual cases.” The case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – and the systemic issues it raises – anchors the Commissioner’s statement.

Of note, Commissioner Hammarberg states that the problem of undue political intervention is widespread; that independence of the judiciary must be protected; and that judges should not have to work with fear. He concludes stating: “Political leaders must accept that the court room is not a political arena.”

Hammarberg writes Khodorkovsky would now have been eligible for parole on an initial conviction in 2005. However, he was tried again in 2010 on new charges and sentenced to another six-year prison term. Serious questions were raised in human rights circles – in Russia and abroad – about the length of the sentence as well as the fairness of the trial itself: whether guilt was proven and whether this was not another trial on the same substance.

Further questions were raised by the fact that the Prime Minister at the time, Vladimir Putin, made no secret of his negative opinions about Khodorkovsky while the trial process was ongoing. He publicly stated that “a thief should sit in jail” in an obvious reference to the case against the former Yukos chairman.

Hammarberg states that undue political influence and lack of independence of judges tend to be particularly acute in the “transition” countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where judges under the communist system were supposed to serve the interests of the political regime – and these habits are more persistent than one would hope.

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