Dates, money, legal costs: decisions of the European Court for “Raping” cases

Russia takes first place in the number of complaints in the European Court of Human Rights. Behind her, by a serious margin, Türkiye and Ukraine go. OVD-Info analyzed the annual report of the ECHR and talks about the most interesting figures related to freedom of assembly.

The ECHR published his annual report, where he said that in 2019 44,500 cases were received in the court. Of these, 15037 cases - from Russia, that is, a little more than a third of the court’s work is occupied by cases from our country.

“In 2019, an increase in the number of complaints from Russians really recorded,” comments on the ECHRA report by the lawyer of the Memorial human rights center Marina Agaltsova. - The ECHR has a concept - “system problems”. And these systemic problems, unfortunately, are not solved at the national level. Therefore, people have to contact [the European Court]. The systems can also be considered a systematic problem when people who are not agreed with the city authorities suddenly begin to arrest for peaceful demonstrations. The authorities do not solve this problem, so the number of complaints has increased.

The second reason for such an amount, according to a lawyer, is that the ECHR is becoming more and more known among citizens, so people are more willing to file complaints. Also, knowledge about such a defense tool penetrates the colony and prison.

“Now there are still complaints about the conditions of detention, they come in large quantities, the state is very poorly solved by this problem,” says Marina Ahaltsova. - It moves towards this, constantly reports to the Committee of Ministers that it is trying to solve this problem, billions are allocated, but for most these problems remain unresolved, so people continue to send a large number of complaints there.

ECHR and freedom of assembly

As in Russia there is 31 article of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a peaceful protest, and in the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms there is an 11 article that also postulates this right. Citizens have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, to conduct meetings, rallies and pickets. Even if this is not agreed with the local authorities.

Often this right is violated by the authorities, rallies are dispersed, participants are subjected to administrative or even criminal prosecution. Complaints of violations of the 11th article of the Convention are sent to the ECHR, where the court makes a decision whether the state has violated this article or not.

Over 21 years of the ECHR, 147 decisions were made against Russia on violation of the right to freedom of assembly. Among them are cases, for example, in the “swamp business”, the case of Navalny against Russia and other cases of detention on protests. As part of the campaign for filing complaints from the ECHR, the lawyers of the OTD-Info and the Human Rights Center "Memorial" plan to send at least a thousand complaints indicating the violation of the 11th article of the Convention.

ECHR and big money

In their decisions, the ECHR obliges the countries to pay compensation to citizens whose rights were violated. According to the report of the Public Verdict Foundation, for 20 years of the court, from 1998 to 2018, Russia paid about 2 billion euros. In 2019, another 600 million were added.

According to violations of the 11th article of the Convention, the largest compensations were paid in the Lashmankin case and others against Russia. 30 applicants participated in the case. The ECHR made a decision to award them compensation in 160,450 euros. The applicants tried to agree on their protests, but they were refused this - in violation of Russian law. We wrote in more detail in the text about pilot decisions. The largest compensation was paid in the case of Navalny against Russia. The amount amounted to 51,025 euros. Five episodes were included, the first of which was in 2012 on March 5 - then Navalny went to the protest on Pushkinskaya Square in protest against falsification in the elections. The opposition was drawn up for the protocol for the fact that he was “in the fountain”, shouted slogans, conducted an inconsistent protest and did not respond to the requests of the police to disperse. Navalny was fined 1000 rubles.

ECHR and little money

Only the court decides to award or not award compensation to the applicant. Therefore, it is impossible to guarantee its presence. But the practice of small compensation or their complete absence is.

The smallest compensation is the amount of 1,500 euros in the case of Sergey Kuznetsov against Russia. Kuznetsov filed a notice to the administration of Yekaterinburg that he wanted to hold a picket in March 2003. He wanted to draw public attention to the problem of violation of citizens' rights to access to court. During the action, the participants distributed leaflets about Ovchak, the chairman of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court, who, in their opinion, was involved in the corruption scandal. In the leaflets there was a call to collect signatures for his dismissal. The city administration decided that she was deceived, and wrote a letter to the police, accusing the participants of committing an offense. As a result, a protocol was drawn up under Part 1 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

Kuznetsov asked for 10 thousand euros, but as a result of the ECHR, he made a decision on 1,500 euros, as compensation for non-pecuniary damage due to administrative persecution. Practice shows that in such cases, less than 4 thousand euros were neither earlier nor later. But we know four cases where compensation was completely absent.

ECHR and deadlines

The ECHR has no clear terms for consideration of complaints. It all depends only on the court itself. The applicants cannot hurry him or complain to the judgment: this can be regarded as abuse of law and pressure on the court. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to predict the terms of consideration. Even within the framework of one 11 article of the Convention, they vary very much.

After Navalny in 2017 was published by the “He NOT DIMON” video, mass protests were held in Moscow and other cities of Russia, which ended in the acceleration of peaceful demonstrators. Among the detainees was Elvira Dmitrieva. The ECHR considered her complaint only 463 days.

And in 2006 there was a protest rally near the FSB building on Lubyanka. Its participants, among whom were Lev Ponomarev, Mikhail Krieger and others, opposed the adoption of laws that complicate the activities of non -profit organizations. This was before the adoption of the Law on Foreign Agents. The court considered the complaint of one of the 11 detainees on that day Elena Ryabina, the court considered 4607 days, that is, almost 13 years. The applicant did not survive before the announcement of the decision.

ECHR and court costs

The court also charges the costs of legal costs from the state. The smallest judicial cost was the amount of 300 euros in the case of a “swamp case” prisoner Alexei Polikhovich, who served 3 years 3 months and 3 days in part 2 of Article 212 (mass riots) and part 1 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code (causing harm to the police officer).

There are also cases where legal costs are not awarded. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the applicants did not ask for this ECHR.

The greatest compensation was also in the Lashmankin case against Russia. It amounted to 23,100 euros. On average, legal costs can cost the country 3-6 thousand euros. And compensation for one complaint is from 5 to 10 thousand euros.

Now in Russia, the practice of peaceful state agreements with the applicant is becoming increasingly widespread . This means that in response to the complaint, the state fully pleads guilty for violation and offers to pay compensation. As a rule, compensation is less than the one that the court is awarded. She also does not carry the court decisions where decisions would be prescribed to correct errors in legislation and enforcement. And this means that so far it is more profitable for Russia to “swim” from its citizens than to solve problems with a systematic violation of their rights.