1366th Meeting of the Ministers' Deputies (5 February 2020)
- On 15 January 2020, the President of the Russian Federation announced amendments to Russia's Constitution in his speech to parliament. A draft bill was submitted to the State Duma on 20 January. The first reading of the draft bill in the State Duma took place on 23 January. Currently, a second reading is expected to take place in February and a national vote on new constitutional amendments is expected to be held in spring of 2020.
- Among the constitutional changes submitted to the State Duma, the European Union takes note of the proposal to amend Article 79 of the Constitution. According to this amendment, decisions of interstate bodies adopted on the basis of international treaties ratified by the Russian Federation, if considered by the Constitutional Court as being contradictory to the Constitution, would not be implemented in the Russian Federation.
- The EU wishes to stress that whatever model of relations between the domestic and the international system is chosen, under the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties a State cannot invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty, including the European Convention on Human Rights. It should be noted that this rule of customary international law was used as a benchmark by the Venice Commission in its 2016 opinion on the Amendments to the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.
- Adoption of the amendment to Article 79 of the Russian Constitution in its present wording would give rise to serious concerns about the Russian Federation's ability to implement its international law commitments, including its unconditional obligation, under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to abide by the final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
- The EU calls on the Russian authorities to ensure that the country's legislation and its application are in full compliance with its international law commitments. In this respect, the EU encourages the Russian Federation to make use of the Council of Europe's expertise, including that of the Venice Commission which has been asked by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly for an opinion in this matter.
