American families challenge the Dima Yakovlev Law in the European Court of Human Rights

On 22 January 2013, four American families submitted an application to the ECHR asking the Court for urgent communication of their application to the Russian Government. All applicants were in the process of adopting Russian children, but could not finalize it due to enactment of the Dima Yakovlev Law by Russia, prohibiting US citizens from adopting Russian orphans. The applicants claim that by passing this Law Russia violated several Articles of the Convention. They also asked the ECHR to order the Russian Government to amend the respective legislation.

Each of the applicants claim that they had already established relationships with the orphans, and that the children had started calling their future adoptive parents “mom” and “dad.” For these reasons, according to the applicants’ attorneys, each of their applicants have formed a family with these children even without having official authorization from domestic courts for adoption. In the applicants’ view, the Dima Yakovlev Law violates their right to respect for private and family life (Article 8 of the Convention), since it impedes them to be with their future adoptive children.

Further, the applicants claim that this Law contradicts Article 3 (prohibition of torture) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention. The applicants also argue that they had no effective remedy to contest the Dima Yakovlev Law in Russia, referring to violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention. Though, it will be rather challenging to prove this, since the applicants did not try to apply to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to claim unconstitutionality of this Law. It is likely that the Russian Government will use this argument to contest exhaustion of all domestic remedies by the applicants before lodging their application with the ECHR.

The Dima Yakovlev Law was named after a Russian boy, Dima Yakovlev, who was adopted by Miles Harrison, a US citizen. In July 2008 Dima died, when his adoptive father had left him in a car in boiling heat for about nine hours. The Dima Yakovlev Law was Russia’s response to enactment of the Magnitsky Bill in the United States that imposes certain financial sanctions on Russian officials allegedly responsible for the death of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky and prohibits their entrance to the United States. 

Recent update: On 28 January 2013 the ECHR considered the application of the American families. On 29 January 2013 the complaint was communicated to the Russian Government. The Court asked the Russian authorities to reply to this application no later than 18 February 2013.