ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, July 14 (UPI) -- Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that its national laws should take precedence over all decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Russian court, based in St. Petersburg, determined that the the nation "can step back from its obligations" to the European court in service of its national interests.
Russian lawmakers have long argued that rulings based on international law over Russian law could be interpreted as ambiguous and also go against its national interests, BBC News reported.
In June, the Kremlin openly condemned the freezing of Russian accounts in France and Belgium as part of an effort to enforce a $50 billion judgment for the destruction of the Yukos, the now defunct oil company. As a result, an arbitration court in The Hague ruled that Russia had to compensate the former shareholders of the company.
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"The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as legal positions of the ECHR that are based on it, cannot cancel the priority of the Constitution," Judge Sergey Mavrin read aloud during Tuesday's session at the constitutional court. "All decisions of the ECHR must be executed only with consideration to the Russian Constitution's supremacy. As an exception, Russia can refuse to fulfill the imposed obligations when such a refusal is the only one to prevent the violation of the basic law."
Tuesday's court ruling was a reply to a group of State Duma deputies who contested a number of Russian laws that ordered Russian courts and state agencies to unconditionally execute all orders of the ECHR, even if such orders contradict the Constitution, Russia Today reported.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said, "This is a decision that cannot be appealed, as far as I understand."
