Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed off Thursday on a law to ratify a key protocol on overhauling the European Court of Human Rights, giving the reform a green light after years of resistance from Moscow.

"Today I have signed this law," Medvedev said at a meeting on judicial matters, the RIA-Novosti and ITAR-TASS news agencies reported.

Earlier this year the Russian parliament agreed to ratify Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, aimed at streamlining the work of the Strasbourg-based court and reducing its backlog of cases.

Russia was the last member of the 47-nation Council of Europe not to have ratified the protocol.

The Duma had rejected the protocol in 2006 amid complaints from some lawmakers that the Strasbourg court was anti-Russian.

Russia is the biggest source of pending cases at the court. Some 27,000 cases out of the 112,000 cases awaiting review by the court originated from Russia, according to the Russian foreign ministry.

Many of those cases have focused on conditions in Russian prisons and abuses committed by government forces in war-torn Chechnya.

Russian officials said they dropped their opposition after the Council of Europe agreed to a provision stating that a Russian judge would participate in any decisions concerning Russia.

At the meeting, Medvedev said Russia should improve the work of domestic courts to reduce the vast amount of people turning to international courts.

"Our task is to establish quality justice which helps our citizens in the country," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

(AFP)