Women’s Rights and the Russian Constitution

When the battle round drafting the Structure was going down in 1991-1993, one specific problem was largely missed – the human rights of girls. The drafters, predominantly male, have been involved with what was perceived as greater points: guaranteeing the primary technology of human rights akin to the correct to life, liberty, property, freedom of meeting, motion and so forth. Not even all drafts explicitly assured girls’s human rights, together with the draft by A. D. Sakharov, a Nobel Prize laureate for human rights. Just one draft provided a separate article on equality between ladies and men; all of the others included the precept of gender equality within the ‘equality clause’ – a particular clause outlining the precept of equality however with out explicitly prohibiting discrimination. The ultimate textual content of the Structure assured equal rights for ladies in Article 19.3, stating that women and men have equal rights and alternatives to train them within the stated equality clause.

Was this an achievement or a failure? Immediately, thirty years later, it’s apparent that such a minimal provision paved the way in which for constitutional neglect of girls’s human rights. Different collective rights (of indigenous individuals, for instance) have been additional assured with a particular federal regulation, however girls by no means acquired such consideration regardless of energetic makes an attempt to place girls’s rights on the legislator’s agenda.

Within the Nineties, girls’s rights continued to be handled utilizing Soviet constructions for dealing with the ‘girl query’. The Soviet Girls’s Committee, which supplied infrastructure for ladies within the Soviet Union, was remodeled into the Union of Russian Girls after the collapse of the USSR, changing into a semi-independent non-governmental group lobbying for the pursuits of girls. On the identical time, the brand new parliament, which emerged as the results of the brand new Structure of 1993, organized the State Duma’s Committee on the Affairs of Girls, Household and Youth (and later Kids) to supervise the ‘girl query’ in cooperation with the federal government and different businesses.

In keeping with the Russian Federation’s dedication to foster democracy and combine into the worldwide authorized order, the Committee was very attentive to the worldwide agenda for ladies’s rights. The Committee actively promoted laws and coverage paperwork to ensure girls’s rights, such because the 1996 Idea of the Enchancment of the Standing of Girls within the Russian Federation, which stayed in pressure until 2004 and was the results of Russia’s dedication to the Beijing Platform. In 1997, the Committee launched the draft regulation ‘On the fundamentals of socio-legal safety from violence within the household’, one among 4 makes an attempt to supply specialised laws to forestall violence towards girls. Finally, in 2003,the draft regulation ‘On state ensures of equal rights and freedoms of women and men and equal alternatives for his or her realization’ was launched to the State Duma after a number of years of preparatory work.

Nevertheless, whereas each piece of draft laws on gender equality or violence towards girls was lastly tabled with specific reference to  conventional values between 2016 and 2020, coverage paperwork akin to ‘ideas’ or ‘methods’ have continued to control human rights of girls as much as today. It’s no coincidence that the regime has been utilizing coverage paperwork slightly than laws. Within the Russian system of authorized sources, a ‘idea’ is a system of interconnected approaches and views on a sure phenomenon, it’s a kind of authorized coverage doc that gives tips for the chief businesses whereas concurrently outlining the state’s stance on sure points. Russia has a ‘idea’ for nearly each area of regulation: The idea of international coverage, nuclear coverage, public administration, larger schooling, demographic coverage, and so forth. One other coverage doc – a ‘technique’ – is a system of particular steps to realize sure outcomes and dietary supplements laws and coverage paperwork. Russia launched the Nationwide Technique within the Pursuits of Girls, 2017–2022, in 2017, which was renewed in 2022 to increase till 2030.

Within the absence of specialised laws, coverage paperwork fill the void. Nevertheless, as they mirror the state’s view on girls’s human rights, they don’t present authorized ensures however slightly construct on the prevailing principally damaging minimal of rights. Within the absence of laws, girls’s rights are held hostage to the state’s coverage and its caprices. Since Putin’s authorities dedicated itself to the ideology of ‘conventional values’ and constructions its insurance policies based mostly on cultural sovereignty, girls’s rights have been always challenged and threatened.

Girls’s rights and gender equality in constitutional regulation

The Structure of 1993 didn’t incorporate any provisions for the potential implementation of particular measures to safeguard girls’s human rights. As an alternative, Articles 15.4 and 17.1 stipulated the supremacy of worldwide treaties ratified by the Russian Federation in cases of legislative gaps or contradictions. This basically signifies that worldwide treaties, particularly, the CEDAW conference, function a direct supply of regulation within the occasion of a authorized hole, which on this case pertains to girls’s human rights. Consequently, particular measures could be launched below such a constitutional provision.

The Structure of 1993 and its amendments of 2020 with their minimal rights ensures (also referred to as formal equality mannequin) present a possible framework for gender stereotyping and permit for the potential for gender-based discrimination within the type of particular measures associated to motherhood and household.. The Structure accommodates provisions for the help of the household, motherhood, fatherhood, and childhood (Article 7.2) and explicitly stipulates that motherhood, childhood, and the household are below state safety (Article 38.1). It’s telling that fatherhood is excluded from the safety clause, thereby enabling gender stereotyping below the guise of constitutional safety.

The case regulation of the Russian Constitutional Court docket (RCC) additionally highlights that gender-based discrimination and human rights of girls not often turn into a topic of its evaluation and ruling. Furthermore, most of the functions which make it to the RCC embrace male candidates alleging gender-based discrimination. One of many landmark Russian instances introduced earlier than the European Court docket of Human Rights – Markin v Russia – is such a case, during which a male applicant claimed and received a case of gender-based discrimination in relation to parental depart, following a loophole within the constitutional provisions for the safety of motherhood, however not fatherhood.

Paradoxically, as students level out, the particular safety of motherhood, together with office safety and maternity advantages, in addition to  girls’s reproductive rights, turned the first focus of male functions alleging gender-based discrimination to the RCC. The case regulation generated by males protesting the preferential remedy of girls is significantly bigger than that arising from girls’s complaints of discrimination. Males lodged complaints about girls’s preferential remedy in pension laws (the place girls’s retirement age is 5 years sooner than males’s), unique feminine entry to maternity capital (a particular demographic measure launched in 2006 to encourage the start of two or extra kids), employment ensures (prohibition of firing a lady throughout being pregnant or whereas on maternity depart), and the solely male obligation of army service.

Against this, girls typically bypassed the RCC to method the European Court docket of Human Rights, with their functions primarily specializing in gender-based violence. Between 2019 – 2021, 16 functions pertaining to home violence have been submitted to the ECtHR from Russia. Previous to that in 2018, the ECtHR communicated one other 4 instances to Russia. Amongst different points, complaints of Russian girls concerning violations of their human rights to the ECtHR turned one of many main factors of competition between the RCC and ECtHR, finally resulting in Russia’s try to problem the supremacy of worldwide regulation throughout the Russian authorized system.

The state of affairs across the Istanbul Conference underscored Russia’s elementary drawback with girls’s human rights. The formal equality mannequin, coupled with protectionist constitutional measures, ended up reinforcing gender stereotypes. This led to a reluctance by authorities to introduce extra laws on girls’s rights, as males felt marginalized and voiced their complaints to the RCC. This reluctance in flip led to the dire state of affairs with gender-based violence laws. The open resistance to becoming a member of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Conference resulted in legislative adjustments in 2020, with a number of federal legal guidelines and codes declaring home laws superior to worldwide regulation.. The Civil, Civil Procedural, Arbitrazh Procedural, Administrative Process and Legal Process Codes have been amended with the phrase ‘utility of the foundations of worldwide treaties of the Russian Federation of their interpretation which contradicts the Structure of the Russian Federation is just not allowed’. This successfully reverted girls to the protectionist and formal equality mannequin in home regulation, during which girls will not be inspired to have an energetic place, however are supposed to attend for the hand-outs from the state.

What’s the way forward for human rights of girls in Russia?

The constitutional amendments of 2020 and subsequent laws specializing in conventional values and safety of the household additionally triggered a dialogue about Russia’s place within the Council of Europe and different worldwide organizations. Even earlier than Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March 2022 for the assault towards Ukraine, there had been voices suggesting that it could have been in Russia’s curiosity to exit the CoE because of its politically-biased angle to Russia, as evidenced by the choices on home violence instances coming from the ECtHR. On 14 February 2023, V.V. Putin declared that ‘some verdicts of this courtroom [ECtHR] turned overtly politicized, … which lately had turn into unacceptable’ thus summing up the core problem.

Because the starting of Russia’ aggression towards Ukraine, the federal government’s rhetoric has turn into extra conservative and nationalistic. In 2022-2023, Russia witnessed the introduction of a slew of oppressive laws straight violating human rights. Towards the backdrop of Putin’s deal with the struggle towards the ‘enemies’ and Russia’s isolation because of ‘combating for the correct trigger’ girls as soon as once more turned the goal of regulation with a gentle and constant assault on their human rights, notably reproductive rights. Furthermore, as girls actively take part in anti-war protests, the authorities have been treating girls extra harshly throughout arrest, trial and sentencing as varied experiences present. Nonetheless, girls proceed to struggle for his or her rights and freedoms in courts and on the streets, hoping for change.