The American Bar Association’s Centre for Rule-of-Law Initiatives (CROLI) has awarded Yuri Schmidt its prestigious Reformer’s Award for 2006.

The American Bar Association (ABA) is the largest voluntary professional association in the world, with a membership of over 400,000 judges, lawyers and legal advisers. It is a non-profit, non-partisan organization which provides counsel on legal issues on behalf of the profession and the general public. One of ABA’s organizational tasks is the promotion of the rule of law world-wide.

‘This award of the ABA Law Initiative Center is designed to recognize people who have demonstrated exceptional foresight, courage and perseverance in promoting the rule of law in their countries’, writes Robert Grey, chairperson of the ABA Center, in a press-release.

The award ceremony will be held in Istanbul on July 11, 2006; and since Yuri Schmidt is unable to attend in person, he has sent the organizers of this prestigious event an acceptance speech which includes a sharp commentary on present-day Russia. In it Yuri Schmidt draws special attention to the fate of our ‘new political prisoners’, and specifically cites the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ‘whose rights were grossly violated at every stage of his trumped-up case’ and whose survival causes him great concern.