On January 18, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued rulings on issues of freedom of assembly in Russia. The documents were published on the official website.
The court considered complaints from 114 clients of the Memorial Human Rights Center and OVD-Info. The applicants were detained at various protests: protests in support of independent candidates on July 27, 2019 , rallies dedicated to the trial of Alexei Navalny on February 2, 2021 , “Freedom for Navalny” protests on January 23 and 31 , 2021, anti-war protests on February 24 , 26 , 27 and March 3 and 6 , 2022.
Information about the clients of the Human Rights Center “Memorial” and OVD-Info is contained in the decisions “ Bukhtenko and others against Russia ”, “ Birev and others against Russia ”, “ Yakhnovets and others against Russia ”, “ Skorokhodov and others against Russia ”, “ Molchanov and others v. Russia ", " Gorodnicheva and others v. Russia ", " Nazaredskaya and others v. Russia " and " Borova and others v. Russia ".
Russian courts prosecuted applicants mainly under the “rally” article (Part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences), the article on participation in an action that interfered with traffic (Part 6.1 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences), and the article on discrediting the army (Article 20.3.3 Code of Administrative Offenses).
The ECHR declared a violation of a number of articles of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the cases of detainees: Article 11 (right to freedom of assembly), Article 5 (right to liberty and security of person), Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 2 Protocol No. 7 (right to review a court decision).
The applicants were awarded compensation in the amount of 3,500 to 5,000 euros.
The ECHR also issued rulings in the cases of politicianYevgeny Roizman in connection with his arrest at rallies in support of Alexei Navalny in 2021, awarding 5,000 euros in compensation, and musicianGrigory Drach . The latter’s interests were represented by lawyers from the Memorial Human Rights Center and OVD-Info; he was awarded 4,000 euros in compensation after his arrest at a rally on January 31, 2021 in Moscow.
On January 19, the ECHR also recognized as victims eight residents of Syktyvkar, who were detained at the end of January 2021 at a rally in support of Navalny. This was reported by the telegram channel “Public Meeting of the Komi Republic”.
Complaints to the European Court were filed by local lawyers Ernst Mezak and Vladislav Kosnyrev. In total, several dozen complaints were sent, and the court satisfied the first eight of them, awarding compensation totaling 31 thousand euros.
- 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 Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe. At the same time, the Court continued to consider complaints about violations by the Russian authorities that occurred before September 14, 2022. Lawyers are still turning to the ECHR with them in order to maintain contact with the Council of Europe, to which Russia may someday want to return. It also makes it possible to record violations and inform European countries about the scale of human rights violations in Russia.