Litigation
Justice Initiative lawyers have represented scores of individuals and groups before domestic and international human rights courts and tribunals around the world. These cases seek not only to vindicate individual claims, but to establish and strengthen the law’s protection for all.
Bubon v. Russia
This case concerned the right of access to state-held information of public interest.
Last update: November 02, 2010Mikhaj and Others v. Russia
This case challenges discrimination against Roma children in Tula, Russia, who have been placed in segregated classes and refused the opportunity to study beyond the fifth year of primary school.
Last update: February 16, 2010Makhashev v. Russia
This case involves brothers who were beaten by Russian police and subjected to anti-Chechen insults. Discrimination by police against Chechens is common in Russia, but this was the first time it has been challenged in court.
Last update: November 26, 2009Romanenko v. Russia
This freedom of expression case before the European Court of Human Rights deals with a Russian newspaper ordered to pay libel damages for quoting local officials.
Last update: October 08, 2009Timishev v. Russia
The Open Society Justice Initiative represented a man of Chechen origin in a challenge to racial profiling by Russian police in the Caucasus, where non-Slavs are disproportionately stopped and detained.
Last update: October 22, 2008Etxebarria v. Spain
A challenge to Spain’s anti-terrorism detention regulations argues that holding two suspects incommunicado without independent legal and medical advice created conditions for abuse.
Last update: October 06, 2014Janowiec v. Russia
In 1940, Josef Stalin ordered the killing of tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war, captured after the Soviet invasion of their country. To this day the full truth of what happened in 1940 has not come out.
Last update: October 17, 2013Magnitsky v. Russia
Sergei Magnitsky died in pretrial detention in Russia after being denied essential medical care, in retaliation for exposing a $230m fraud involving senior Interior Ministry officials.
Last update: October 17, 2012