The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced on Thursday (January 19th) that it had asked the UK government for answers regarding suspicions of Russian interference during the elections, in the context of a complaint brought by British parliamentarians. .
The ECHR's request comes in the context of a complaint raised by three parliamentarians after the High Court in London dismissed in 2021 a case relating to the Conservative government's passivity in the face of suspicions of Russian interference in the British electoral process.
Boris Johnson would have "looked away" from this affair
In their complaint, they claim that the failure of Boris Johnson's government to investigate '
credible accusations
' of interference runs counter to its obligation to protect the right to free and fair elections, as set out in the European convention of human rights.
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In 2020, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of the British Parliament indicated that it could not affirm with certainty the existence of a Russian intervention, in particular during the vote on Brexit in 2016 or the referendum of independence of Scotland in 2014.
But its report concluded that Boris Johnson's government had "
looked away
", and critics had blamed the inaction on the Conservative Party's ties to some of its Russian donors.
Complaint accepted
In a letter to the three MPs, the ECHR says it has accepted their complaint, and now needs the British government to answer five questions by the end of April.
These MPs - Labor Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party and Alyn Smith of the Scottish National Party (SNP) - are part of a group of six MPs who tried unsuccessfully to take the case to the High Court in London in June 2021.
The democracy advocacy group The Citizens, which worked on the case with parliamentarians, regretted that the United Kingdom did not give the same treatment to this case as the United States, where multiple investigations have made it possible to conclude that Russia did try to influence the 2016 presidential election.
This case is about protecting "
the integrity of our policies
", not about undoing Brexit, Ben Bradshaw said Thursday.
“
A number of us have warned of the true intentions of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.
We know that his long-term strategy is to destabilize and divide Western democracies,
” he added.
