Protection of the child’s rights is declared as one of the priority goals in the field of social policy in Russia. However, the current situation regarding the protection of children’s rights is far from the intended goals. The politicization of this issue does not contribute to the improvement of this situation. Concentration on foreign policy, sanctions, and economic crisis are having an additional negative effect. In addition to these conditions, the Constitutional Court of Russia disagrees with a number of decisions of the ECtHR and allows Russian authorities not to execute them. This generally complicates the situation with the judicial protection of human rights, and in particular, children’s rights.
This lecture will cover the following issues:
- A brief overview of the Russian child protection system: regulations, principles, statistics
- Hot points: most relevant issues regarding child protection in Russia
- Russia and ECtHR: cases and status of ECtHR decisions in Russia
- Legitimacy and political motivation of the Russian Constitutional Court’s decisions
Olga Komshukov is a PhD student in Political Science at National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia), and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism, UiB.