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Russia's Justice Ministry in no hurry to act on ECHR’s Yukos case ruling — minister

The minister said Russia is not violating anything

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. Russia’s Justice Ministry is in no hurry to act on the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in the Yukos case, Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov told the media.

"For the time being the process is proceeding as it should. There is no hurry. The procedure of enforcing ECHR decisions is rather long. We are not violating anything," he said.

He added that "we have a law that envisages certain competences of the Constitutional court regarding ECHR rulings."

In late July 2014, the Hague court sustained a claim of the former Yukos shareholders demanding that Russia should compensate for the damage, and ordered Moscow to pay $50.1 billion or half the $100 billion originally sought by the plaintiffs. Lawyers estimate that the sum of interest on the penalty could reach $1.7 billion within a year.

The court ruled that Russia’s actions against Yukos could be regarded as expropriation of investments in breach of Article 45 of the Energy Charter which Russia had signed in the 1990s but never ratified.