BRINGING HUMAN RIGHTS HOME: THE CHALLENGE OF ENFORCING JUDICIAL RULINGS IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

INTRODUCTION Over the past several years, 3 Ukraine has garnered international attention concerning challenges to democratic consolidation, widespread corruption in the top echelons of government, and the high-profile trials of former government officials and opposition leaders. 4 However, one of the most significant obstacles to the development of rule of law in Ukraine is not new: the failure to enforce domestic judgments is an enduring feature of the national legal system. Nina Karpacheva, the former Human Rights Ombudsman of Ukraine, estimated in her 2011 annual report that over 60 percent of all domestic court decisions and 98 percent of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights against Ukraine had not been fully enforced. 5 While several factors contribute to the development of rule of law, a system in which verdicts regularly go unenforced cannot be said to provide consistent, fair, or meaningful justice. Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms guarantees the right to "adequate and timely execution of legitimate judicial decisions." 6 The failure to enforce a court decision violates an individual's right to a fair trial, which the European Court of Human Rights describes as a fundamental component of the rule of law, 7 as well as the right to an effective remedy for the original violation found by the court. Domestic and international observers, the Ukrainian government, and the Council of Europe have repeatedly acknowledged and discussed this systemic shortcoming. In several of its earliest ...