Moscow, 23 April: Russian prosecutors transferred to courts more than 277,000 lawsuits related to protecting citizens' rights in 2007, Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Aleksandr Zvyagintsev said on Tuesday [22 April] at a meeting with Luc Van den Brande and Theodoros Pangalos, the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] rapporteurs [who are preparing a report] on the honouring by Russia of its Council of Europe obligations.

"The guests have been told that last year 2m citizens appealed to prosecution agencies and almost a quarter of the appeals were satisfied. In the area of labour relations alone, prosecutors identified over 716,000 violations of the law. Adequate prosecution measures were taken regarding all violations of the law, and, in particular, more than 277,000 lawsuits and applications were transferred to court for defending citizens' rights which had been violated," says a message of the Russian Prosecutor-General's office, posted at its website.

It was mentioned during the conversation, that "the most vulnerable and poor categories of people, who cannot afford to hire a qualified lawyer to protect their interests in court, most often appeal to prosecutor's offices, asking to help them defend their rights. Prosecutor's offices defend citizens' rights free of charge, and in a speedy and efficient manner," the document says. [Passages omitted]

Meanwhile, commenting on reports circulated by some media outlets, head of the Russian delegation at the PACE and chairman of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said that in his opinion, a statement about the need to abolish prosecution agencies in Russia, which was attributed to the PACE representatives, was a misapprehension.

"I think it is some kind of misapprehension or, possibly, one of my colleagues has misunderstood a statement by the PACE representatives," Kosachev told Interfax news agency.

A number of media outlets, referring to A Just Russia deputy Mikhail Yemelyanov, earlier reported that the two PACE rapporteurs on the honouring by Russia of its Council of Europe obligations, Luc Van den Brande and Theodoros Pangalos, allegedly announced the need to abolish prosecution agencies in Russia at today's meeting with parliamentarians in the State Duma.

"I was not present at the meeting my colleague Yemelyanov talked about, but this morning I had a detailed discussion with the two PACE representatives, and before that we had regular contacts on a systematic basis, and they had never raised the issue from this angle," Kosachev said.

At the same time he said that "the PACE has its own ideas about how to improve the Russian law-enforcement system, and we have an ongoing dialogue regarding this, but there have never been any such ultimatums, and we would not have allowed it anyway".