Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has said Moscow will not consider itself bound by the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg if Russia is not allowed to participate in the selection of judges.
Volodin made the comments in St. Petersburg on October 14 at the opening of a session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
ECHR judges are selected by deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
However, Russia's PACE delegation was stripped of its voting rights in April 2014 because of Moscow's illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Russia, in response, withdrew from all PACE activities. In June, Russia suspended its financial contributions to the Council of Europe.
On October 13, Russian Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko made a similar statement about the ECHR, saying that anyone chosen without Russia's participation "will not be fully legitimate."
