The country dropped its long-standing blockade of a much-needed reform of the European Court of Human Rights on Friday when the State Duma ratified Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Deputies voted 392-56 for the reform, with opposition coming from the Communist and the Liberal Democrats’ factions, Interfax reported.

The vote came as little surprise because United Russia, the ruling party that commands a two-thirds parliamentary majority, had announced in December that it would review its position after President Dmitry Medvedev asked deputies to take a fresh look at the matter.

United Russia and the Foreign Ministry said the Council of Europe, the organization overseeing the court, had made concessions that addressed all their reservations. Council of Europe officials, however, stressed that no changes to the protocol had been made.

Thorbjorn Jagland, the council’s secretary-general, promised during a visit to Moscow last month that ratification would significantly increase Russia’s influence over future reforms of the 47-member organization, Kommersant reported Saturday.

One of the reforms that Jagland will suggest this week is to strengthen the link between a member’s budget contributions and its number of staff in the council, the report said.

Such a reform would greatly benefit Russia, which last year contributed 12 percent to the council’s budget. “If this is implemented, the number of Russians in the council will be doubled,” an unidentified source in Strasbourg, the seat of the organization, told Kommersant.

Jagland on Friday praised the Duma’s ratification, saying in a statement that “Russia is sending a strong signal of its commitment to Europe.”

The country had been the only Council of Europe member that refused to ratify the protocol, despite the fact that a third of the cases flooding the court come from Russia.

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