Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council has commented on the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment regarding Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s first trial. The comments were given during an interview with Russian radio station Kommersant FM.

Fedotov argued that following the ECtHR judgement, the Russian Supreme Court should follow the ECtHR lead:

“The Supreme Court must recognise the ECtHR decisions, and review previous Russia courts decisions. When these previous judgments were given, there had been no judgement by the ECtHR. This is a new development which shines a new light on the criminal cases in question and brings new understanding of the nature of Khodorkovsky’s first trial.” “The Supreme Court must review the case.”

Fedotov also commented on the pressures put on independent Russian experts who criticized the trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. He revealed that the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council is now working out the principles on which they will review politically motivated trials in future, such as the trial of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the so-called ‘Kirovles case’ and the trials of the May 6 Bolotnaya Square protesters, often referred to as the ‘Bolotnaya case’.

Fedotov concluded that during meetings of the Standing Committee he constantly hears from the members of the board that “the experts who would agree to participate in such cases must be protected”.

Read the full interview in Russian here.