The Associated Press

PARIS -- A European court on Thursday ordered Russia to pay damages for putting defendants in metal cages in court, a practice it condemned as "degrading treatment." The enclosures have held opposition figures, Greenpeace activists and untold numbers of less-prominent suspects across the country.

The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay about $21,600 total to plaintiffs Alexander Svinarenko and Valentin Sladnyev. While the ruling technically only applies to the two plaintiffs and does not force Russia to abolish the cages, it puts pressure on Moscow to do so by finding that they violate the European Convention of Human Rights, said court spokesman Nina Salomon.

The European court's rulings are binding on countries that are party to that convention, including Russia. If they aren't followed, Russia could eventually be kicked out of the Council of Europe, the continent's human-rights body. Membership in such institutions is seen as important to international legitimacy.

Russian courtrooms are almost uniformly equipped with cages for defendants, a legacy from the Soviet era. Defendants who are not deemed too dangerous are normally allowed to sit on a bench instead.

This was the first case involving Russian defendant cages to reach the Grand Chamber of the court, based in Strasbourg, France. The chamber's language was unusually sharp, calling the cages "an affront to human dignity" and "incompatible with the standards of civilized behavior that were the hallmark of a democratic society."

Tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is estimated to have spent about two years in courtrooms facing charges of financial wrongdoing, was kept in a metal cage during his first trial. He was kept in a glass, bullet-resistant cage during his second trial after he complained to the European court.

A Section on 07/18/2014