Twelve lawyers from Russia were denied visas to attend a three-day Law Society human rights training course in London last month.
The Russian lawyer who co-ordinated the visas, which would have enabled the lawyers to receive training on the rule of law, described the decision not to grant the applications as potentially ‘suspicious’.
Twenty-one lawyers from the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia submitted visa applications to the British embassy in Moscow, seeking to attend a course on the rule of law and the European Convention on Human Rights delivered by former lord justice of appeal Sir Henry Brooke and other lawyers and academics.
However, only nine of these applications were successful, while 12 were refused.
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The Law Society wrote to the embassy in Moscow for clarification, but was told by the UK Border Agency that it could not discuss the applications due to data protection guidelines.
Ashot Aroutiounov, vice-president of the chamber of advocates of the Rostov-on-Don region, who coordinated the visa applications, said all applicants gave the same detail and documentation.
‘To grant visas to some and not to others is at best inconsistent, at worst suspicious,’ he said.
A Law Society spokesman said that a search of a worldwide database of lawyers did not reveal any reason why the delegates should have been refused visas.
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