Translated material
The ECHR issued rulings on four complaints from Memorial and OVD-Info
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has issued six rulings in cases involving people detained during peaceful protests. Information about the decisions was published on the court's website.
In the ruling “ Abdulmanov and others v. Russia ,” the ECHR considered four complaints filed jointly by lawyers from the Human Rights Center “Memorial” and OVD-Info. The complaints concerned detentions at several protests: for the admission of candidates to the Moscow City Duma elections on July 27, 2019 , in support of protesters in Belarus on September 20, 2020 , and against amendments to the Constitution on July 15, 2020 . The applicants were awarded compensation in the amount of four thousand euros.
According to the national authorities, the applicants violated the legislation on participation in public events. Russian courts imposed fines on them ranging from 15 to 20 thousand rubles.
The ECHR found violations of several articles of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) in the cases of Memorial and OVD-Info clients. Thus, the Russian authorities violated the provision that guarantees the right to freedom of peaceful assembly (Article 11 of the ECHR). The court considered the measures taken against the participants and organizers of the protests to be disproportionate. The ECHR also found a violation of the article that enshrines the right to freedom and personal security (Article 5 of the ECHR). The court concluded that being taken to the police station because of participation in the protest had no legal basis. According to Russian law, police officers were required to draw up a report at the scene of arrest and not hold applicants at the police station for many hours.
Another article that was violated by the ECHR is the article that talks about the right to a fair trial (Article 6 of the ECHR). In the cases of the clients of Memorial and OVD-Info, violation of this article was expressed in the absence of the prosecutor at court hearings. In this case, the functions of the prosecution were taken over by the court itself.
At the same time, the ECHR, in its rulings “ Benyash and others v. Russia ”, “ Dolgushin and others v. Russia ” and “ Yartsev and others v. Russia ”, considered violations of Article 3 of the ECHR in relation to participants in peaceful protests. This article prohibits the use of torture. The applicants under these decisions complained of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. The Court concluded that Russia had failed to fulfill its obligations under Article 3 of the Convention by failing to fully investigate the allegations of ill-treatment.
In its rulings, the ECHR indicates the circumstances of the beatings of protest participants and also describes the injuries received by the detainees.
18:00 The court also awarded 16 thousand euros to lawyer Mikhail Benyash. In September 2018, he was detained and beaten at the police station. After this, a criminal case was opened against then-lawyer Benyash under the article on assault on police officers (Part 1 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code) - according to investigators, he bit one officer on the hand and hit another in the face. In October 2019, the court sentenced the lawyer to a fine of 30 thousand rubles, but in 2021 the sentence was overturned on appeal, sending the case for a new trial.
19:05 The ECHR, in the framework of the case “Gabdulvaleev and others against Russia,” awarded four thousand euros to the former coordinator of Navalny’s Rostov headquarters, Ksenia Seredkina, who was detained at a protest in August 2018. In the same case, the court awarded 3,500 euros in compensation to Stavropol resident Daniil Golovachev, who was brought to justice in September of the same year for participating in a protest against the 2018 pension reform.
Volgograd resident Galina Tikhenko , prosecuted for participating in the Independence Day celebrations in 2012, was also awarded 3,500 euros by the court.
Kavkaz.Realii drew attention to the decisions.
On July 21, the ECHR also awarded compensation of 16 thousand euros to Moscow resident Daria Sosnovskaya, who was hit in the stomach by a police officer during her arrest at a rally for fair elections on August 10, 2019. This was reported by the Trauma Center project.
After being detained at the rally, Sosnovskaya was hospitalized . Together with her defenders, she repeatedly tried to bring to justice the security officer who hit her. However, law enforcement agencies refused to investigate, and the courts upheld their decisions.
Since the beginning of the joint campaign, lawyers from the Memorial Human Rights Center and OVD-Info have filed more than 2,800 complaints to the ECHR. Currently, the court in Strasbourg has already satisfied 400 of them.
On June 11, 2022, Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing the Russian government not to implement ECHR decisions taken after March 15, 2022, the day the Russian Federation left the Council of Europe.