The New Daily Newspaper, Issue 14, January 25, 1995
Ernest Ametistov:
No Constitution is Worth Bloodshed
An opinion of a Justice of the Constitutional Court
Historic Experience
One of the most terrifying recollections of my childhood Is the final stage of the deportation of the Chechen people from their homeland to Kazakhstan. This happened in Karaganda in 1944. I saw how these people were brought in railroad cars and half of them were unloaded as corpses. Those who survived the journey were thrown into unheated barracks with the temperature outside being - 40 C. You can imagine in what conditions we, war refugees, had lived in Karaganda, but we gave these people shelter at least until summer. I think that such events remain in the genetic memory of a peoples and do not disappear without trace. And this had to be taken into account from the very beginning--
In pre-Revolutionary tsarist Russia special status was granted to Finland, Poland and the Khivin and Bukhara Khanates. This did not prevent the Russian Empire from remaining a great and undivided power. We must also bear this experience in mind.
About the High Court
The situation with the Constitutional Court should be clarified once and for all. According to clause five of the law on the CC its body is to be formed not later than 30 days following the coming of this law into force. The law was passed by the Council of the Federation and became valid on July 23 of last year!
According to the same law, after the body of the CC is formed it elected its chairman, deputy chairman, secretary justice and forms its chambers. This means that without this the court cannot start working. Right now the court cannot deliver a verdict, hear a case, etc.
All this is discreditable and is actually an obstruction of the activity of the Constitutional Court and nothing more than political games around the election of justices for the existing vacancies.
Abount Justice and Chechnya
I will to try to approach this issue with reserve since it might be brought before the Constitutional Court.
The point here is to choose the basic criteria, and these criteria are the rights and freedoms of citizens. The Constitution provides a clear answer: these rights and freedoms are the highest values and must be ensured by the state. Thus, these criteria are the main ones when considering all other issues.
Another issue which we will have to deal with (if ever) is the correlation between the need to preserve the unity of the Russian state and Chechnya's right to self-determination. These two concepts are mentioned one with another in several article of Constitution.
I made my standpoint clear at the time of the Tartar referendum. Then the CC ruled that the decision to hold a referendum was unconstitutional. I had my own opinion in regard to this question. I believe that if we shall be guided by human rights' pacts and other international treaties it is our duty to consider the right of a peoples to self-determination. And this does not necessarily mean separation.
I am positive that if we had started negotiations with the Chechnya Republic's leadership things would not have gone as far as its withdrawal from the Russian Federation. Chechnya could have been granted a certain special status. I think that this question in particular should become the subject of the forthcoming negotiations because not a single constitution is worth human blood.
If because of the Constitution it is impossible to establish an adequate status for Chechnya, this means that the Constitution has to be amended in accordance with the procedure stipulated in this document.
According to article 80 of the RF Constitution specifying the powers of the President, it is the duty of the president to take measures ensuring the state's integrity. But what should these measures include and whether these measures comply with the Constitution -- that is to be decided by the Constitutional Court.
In this respect we will have to look at the Law on Defense.
I have received a draft decision of the State Duma on amendments to this law: "Part 3 of article 10 should read: the use of the armed forces for fulfilling tasks not connected with their purpose may only take place on the basis of a presidential decree approved by the Council of the Federation." If this clause had been included in the Law on Defense a lot of things would have turned out differently.
The limit dividing human rights violation in a country or region and mass violation has not yet been clearly established in international law.
If someone wants to prove that the killing of hundreds or maybe thousands of innocent people during bombing is not a mass violation, let him try to do that. But from the point of view of the practice of international law -- and this is also my opinion -- what is happening in Chechnya is a mass and gross violation of human rights.
About Politics and Governments
The greatest tragedy is that the democratic government of Russia, whose appearance was a result of a tremendous effort on the part of the people and all democratic forces, has now resorted to methods which are directed toward the implementation of the reactionary ideas of our most reactionary forces.
I think it is time for our people to realize this, especially in year-and-a-half from now during elections.
For the sake of stopping bloodshed and saving human lives it pays to negotiate even with the devil. With any forces or groups on which can stop the shooting.
Interview by Svetlana Orliuk
