European court raps Russia over Chernobyl damages
Date: 08-May-02
Country: FRANCE
The court said Anatoli Burdov, called up by the military to work at Chernobyl for three months after the world's worst radiation disaster in 1986, was unfairly treated because Russian social security delayed his compensation payments. Rejecting the social security service's excuse that its coffers were empty, it said that non-payment amounted to denying Burdov a fair trial. "The Court considered that lack of funds could not justify such an omission," it said in a statement.
It ruled Burdov should be paid 3,000 euros ($2,750) in damages for the delays in the payments, which were finally made after he took his case to the Strasbourg-based court. Burdov was called up on October 1, 1986, five months after Chernobyl's reactor four exploded. Chernobyl, located in what is now the independent country of Ukraine, belonged at the time to the Soviet Union and many Russians worked there.
Burdov, a Russian whose local social security office in Shakhty in southwestern Russia is responsible for compensating him, was exposed to heavy radioactive emissions during the clean-up operations, the court said.
He was awarded compensation in 1991, when his failing health was linked to Chernobyl, but the Shakhty social security office failed to pay anything for years.
Burdov won two court cases against the social security office in 1997 and 1999, but the office said it could not pay the sum because it lacked the funds. He won a third case in March 2000 and promptly filed suit with the European Court.
