The lower house of the Russian parliament on Friday ratified Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, opening the way for European Court of Human Rights reform.
Protocol 14, designed to simplify and speed up the work of the ECHR, had previously been signed and ratified by all Council of Europe member states except Russia.
The protocol was introduced to help the court cope with the growing backlog of complaints, nearly one-third of them filed against Russia.
Moscow has often criticized the court's rulings against it as political.
The Council of Europe welcomed Russia's ratification.
CoE Secretary General Torbjorn Jagland said the ratification would be important "for the whole of Europe," strengthening the Court's role in upholding human rights across Europe.
The State Duma, dominated by the Kremlin-backed United Russia party, declined to ratify the protocol in December 2006 on the grounds that some of its provisions were at odds with Russian laws.
Protocol 14, among other things, establishes a new mechanism to assist the enforcement of judgments by the CoE Committee of Ministers.
The Committee can ask the Court for an interpretation of a judgment and can even bring a member state before the Court for non-compliance to a previous judgment against that state.
MOSCOW, January 15 (RIA Novosti)
