Strasbourg, 20 March 2012 - Outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered Russia’s Prosecutor General to verify the legality of the conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the oil company Yukos. Cases relating to co-accused Platon Lebedev and 30 others would also be assessed. Though the deadline set for the review is strikingly short, the initiative may create an opening for a long-awaited discussion about politicised trials, says Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, in his latest Human Rights Comment published today.

"Undue political influence and lack of independence of judges tend to be particularly acute in the “transition” countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where judges under the communist system were supposed to serve the interests of the political regime - and these habits are more persistent than one would hope.", Thomas Hammarberg writes. (more...)