the primacy of international law in the domestic legal order,12 in its ruling no. 21-П, dated 14 July 2015, the Constitutional Court held that this Court’s judgments may be implemented only insofar as they do not contravene the Russian Constitution. As a result, the ability of Russian institutions to effectively execute the decisions of this Court has been weakened, and it may ultimately have repercussions on the compliance of laws and procedures, including in the extradition context, with the ECHR. Russian legal experts have expressed the view that, in particular insofar as the regulation and practice of extraditions are concerned, the constitutional principle of international law primacy has been undermined. Further, they have documented how extradition practice indicates that domestic law, including secondary legislation, de facto, take precedence over Russia's international human rights obligations.13 III. Limitations on extradition According to this Court’s jurisprudence, the ECHR “does not prevent cooperation between States, within the framework of extradition treaties […] provided that it does not interfere with any specific rights recognised in the Convention”.14 While the Court has held that the fair trial guarantees of criminal or civil proceedings do not fully apply to extradition procedures,15 States Parties remain bound to ensure the absolute respect of the non-refoulement principle in all removal procedures, including extradition, regardless of their legal basis.16 Russian law sets out a list of mandatory grounds for refusing extraditions, including: persons persecuted for holding political opinions;17 persons to whom asylum has been granted in Russia (refugee status or temporary asylum);18 and persons with respect to whom extradition has been blocked by a Russian court in accordance with national legislation and international treaties binding on the Russian Federation. 19 The latter implicitly incorporates in Russian law the non-refoulement principle, although it is not clear that its scope is coterminous with the non-refoulement principle developed by this Court under the Convention. In its Decision no. 11 of 14 June 2012, in relation to article 3 ECHR, the Plenum of the Russian Supreme Court did indicate that “extradition should be refused if there were serious reasons to believe that the person might be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment in the requesting country. Extradition could also be refused if exceptional circumstances disclosed that it might entail a danger to the person’s life and health on account of, among other things, his or her age or physical condition.”20 12 See article 15(4) of the Russian Constitution, article 1.3 Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). The CPC provides that general principles and norms of international law and international treaties of the Russian Federation are a constituent part of its legislation concerning criminal proceedings and in case of conflict between provisions of an international treaty and those in the Code, the international norms prevail. 13 Opinion expressed by Eleonor Davidyan, lawyer of the project "Right to Asylum" of the Institute for Human Rights, Russian Federation, in an interview with the ICJ; similar opinion is expressed on the basis of analysis of normative legal acts and administrative practices by Asker Chermit, in PhD dissertation "Institute of extradition in the Russian Federation: Constitutional legal foundations", Moscow 2004, available at the library of the Russian Academy of the State Service under the President of the Russian Federation. 14 Čalovskis v. Latvia, ECtHR, Application no. 22205/13, 24 July 2014, para. 129. 15 H v Spain, ECommHR, Application no. 10227/82. 16 Babar Ahmad and others v UK, ECtHR, Applications nos. 24027/07 and others, 10 April 2012, para. 168. 17 Article 63.2, Constitution. It should be noted that prior to late 1990s the Russian legal doctrine did not encompass the notion of "political offence". In ratifying in 1999 the 1957 European Convention on Extradition, Russia incorporated the clause banning extradition for political offence in its legal system. At the same time, Russian Federation considers the list of crimes that are not deemed to constitute political offences provided in Article 1 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention as nonexhaustive and hence may have extensive interpretation of what it would not consider as a political offence. 18 Art. 464(1(2)),CPC. 19 Article 464(1)(5)). Other grounds exclude extradition for Russian nationals, see, article 61.1, Constitution; article 464(1(1). See Bulletin of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, 2010, no.1 pp.30,31 and B.T. Bezlepkin, Commentary to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (itemized), 13th edition, Moscow, 2015, p.1107. 20 Abdulkhakov v. Russia, Application no. 14743/11, 2 October 2012, para. 77 reporting the content of Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 14.06.2012 N 11 (ed. of 03.03.2015) "On the practice of courts on 2