Overview of Rule 9 Submissions in view of the Committee of Minister’s Deputies Human Rights Meeting November/December 2021

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From the 30th of November to the 2nd of December the Council of Europe’s Committee of Minister’s Deputies will meet for their quarterly Human Rights Meeting. This meeting will examine several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that are still pending implementation. The agenda consists of 42 cases from 21 members of the Council of Europe.

EIN members/partners, other civil society actors, lawyers and applicants have made the following submissions for cases under consideration. The list below sets out an overview of these submissions related to cases on the current agenda.

Overview of Submissions

 GAFGAZ MAMMADOV group v. AZERBAIJAN (Application No. 60259/11) 

Violation: This group concerns numerous breaches of the applicants’ freedom of assembly through the dispersal of unauthorised peaceful demonstrations in 2010-2014 and their ensuing arrest and administrative conviction to short periods of detention for having participated in the demonstrations or criminal convictions for public disorder. It also concerns a violation of the right of individual petition on account of the seizure from the office of the applicants' representative of the entire case file relating to the applicants’ pending cases before the Court, together with all his other case files.

 Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-1 (March 2021)

Submissions:


MAMMADLI group v. AZERBAIJAN (Application No. 47145/14) 

Human Rights House Foundation

Violation: This group concerns the arrest and pre-trial detention to punish the applicants for his activities in the area of electoral monitoring (Mammadli) or for their active social and political engagement (Rashad Hasanov and Others) in breach of Article 18 taken in conjunction with Article 5.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1411/H46-3 (September 2021) 

Submissions:

MURADOVA GROUP, MAMMADOV (JALALOGLU) GROUP, MIKAYIL MAMMADOV GROUP v. AZERBAIJAN (Application No. 22684/05, 34445/04, 4762/05)

Violation: Excessive use of force by the security forces and lack of effective investigations.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1377bis/H46 (1-3 September 2020)

Submissions:

KOLEVI v. BULGARIA (Application No. 1108/02)

Violation: Systemic problem of ineffective criminal investigations with regard to shortcomings which affect investigations concerning both private individuals and law enforcement agents and lack of guarantees for the independence of criminal investigations against the Chief Prosecutor.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-6 (March 2021)

Submissions:

VELIKOVA GROUP v. BULGARIA (Application No. 41488/98)

Violation: Excessive use of force by law enforcement agents; ineffective investigations.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1383/H46-3 (29 September – 1 October 2020)

Submissions:

STATILEO GROUP v. CROATIA (Application No. 12027/10)

Violation: Statutory limitations on use of property by landlords, including through the rent control scheme for flats subject to protected leases.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-7 (March 2021)

Submissions:

X  v. FINLAND (Application No. 34806/04)

Violation: Extensions of a confinement in mental hospital and forcible administration of medication without adequate legal safeguards.

First Examination

Submissions:

KHAN v. France (Application No. 12267/16)

Violation: Lack of care and protection of an unaccompanied foreign minor given his living conditions in the Calais “lande” and the non-enforcement of the order of the juvenile judge aimed at protecting him.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1390/H46-9 (December 2020)

Submissions:

IDENTOBA AND OTHERS GROUP v. GEORGIA (Application No. 73235/12)

 Violation: Lack of protection against homophobic attacks during demonstrations.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1383/H46-5 (29 September – 1 October 2020) 

Submissions:

GUBACSI GROUP v. HUNGARY (Application No. 44686/07)

 Violation: Inhuman and degrading treatment by law enforcement officers and/or the lack of adequate investigations in this respect. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1383/H46-9 (29 September – 1 October 2020) 

Submissions:

ILIAS AND AHMED v. HUNGARY (Application No. 47287/15)

Violation: Authorities’ failure to assess the risks of ill-treatment before expelling the applicants, asylum-seekers, to a “safe third country”

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1406/H46-14 (June 2021)

Submissions:


TONELLO (SHAW GROUP) v. HUNGARY (Application No. 46524/14)

 Violation: Authorities’ failure to enforce court decisions ordering the return to the applicants of their children.

 Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1390/H46-13 (December 2020)

Submissions:

KHLAIFIA AND OTHERS v. ITALY (Application No. 16483/12) 

Violation: Absence of clear and accessible legal basis for the detention of irregular migrants arrived on the Italian coasts in 2011 as part of the events related to the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia; lack of domestic judicial review of the lawfulness of the detention and of the conditions of reception.

 Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-13 (March 2021) 

Submissions:

OZDIL AND OTHERS v. REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA (Application No. 42305/18) 

Violation: In the present case, the Court found violations of Articles 5 § 1 and 8 of the Convention on account of the extra-legal transfer of all five applicants[1] from the Republic of Moldova to Turkey in September 2018, which circumvented all guarantees offered to them by domestic and international law. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-15 (March 2021)

Submissions:

SARBAN v. REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA (Application No. 3456/05) 

Violation: Various violations mainly arising from pre-trial detention. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1377/H46-22 (June 2020) 

Submissions:

X v. North Macedonia (Application no. 29683/16)

Violation: Lack of legislation governing the conditions and procedures for changing on birth certificates the registered sex of transgender people.

Last examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1369/H46-18 (March 2020)

Submissions:

TYSIĄC, R.R., and P. AND S. v. Poland (Applications No. 27617/04, 5410/03, 57375/08)

Violation: Absence of an adequate legal framework for the exercise of the right to therapeutic abortion in the event of disagreement between the patient and the specialist doctor (Tysiac) and lack of access to prenatal test enabling to take an informed decision on whether to seek an abortion (R.R.). Failure to provide effective access to reliable information on the conditions and procedures to be followed to access lawful abortion lawful abortion (P. and S.). 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-18 (March 2021) 

Submissions:  

BUCUR AND TOMA v. ROMANIA (Application No. 40238/02)

Violation: Conviction of a whistle-blower for having disclosed information on the illegal secret surveillance of citizens by the Intelligence Service; lack of safeguards in the statutory framework governing secret surveillance.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2016)1273/H46-21 (December 2016)

Submissions:

M.C. AND A.C. v. ROMANIA (Application No. 12060/12)

Violation: Lack of an effective investigation into ill-treatment by private parties including into possible homophobic motives behind the attack.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2019)1355/H46-30 (September 2019) 

Submissions:

  •   Coming soon

S.C. POLYINVEST S.R.L. AND OTHERS (applications concerning S.C. POLYINVEST S.R.L. (No. 20752/07)

and OMEGATECH ENTERPRISES LTD. (No. 24612/07)) & SEVEN OTHER SIMILAR APPLICATIONS

Violation: Non-implementation of court’s or arbitral awards ordering State-controlled companies to pay various sums to the applicants/applicant companies.

Last examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1411/H46-28 (September 2021)

Submission:

KUDESHKINA v. RUSSIAN FEDERATION (Application No. 29492/05)

Violation: Dismissal from judicial office for making critical media statements about the judiciary. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1406/H46-28 (June 2021)

Submissions:

MIKHEYEV GROUP v. RUSSIAN FEDERATION (Application No. 77617/01)

Violation: Torture or inhuman/degrading treatment in police custody with a view to extracting confessions and lack of effective investigations; arbitrary and/or unacknowledged arrest and detention in police custody. Use in criminal proceedings of confessions obtained in breach of Article 3 and lack of an effective remedy to claim compensation for ill-treatment. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2019)1362/H46-26 (December 2019)

CM/Del/Dec(2020)1383/A2 (29 September – 1 October 2020)

 Submissions:

SVINARENKO AND SLYADNEV GROUP v. RUSSIAN FEDERATION (Application No. 32541/08)

 Violation: Degrading treatment on account of confinement in a metal cage in the courtroom during criminal proceedings or in the remand prison for the purposes of participation, by means of a video link, in the hearings concerning detention.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2020)1383/H46-20 (29 September – 1 October 2020)

 Submissions:

CUMHURİYETÇİ EĞİTİM VE KÜLTÜR MERKEZİ VAKFI GROUP and ZENGIN HASAN AND EYLEM GROUP v. TURKEY (Application No. 32093/10, 1448/04)

Violation: Structural and administrative problems leading to various differences in treatment between followers of the Alevi faith and adherents of the majority branch of Islam, including compulsory religious education classes. 

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2019)1362/H46-32 (December 2019)

Submissions:

GURBAN GROUP v. TURKEY (Application No. 4947/04)

Violation: Absence of any mechanism to review “aggravated” life imprisonment sentence, and conditions of detention 

First Examination

 Submissions:

KAVALA v. TURKEY (Application No. 28749/18) 

Photo Credit: Kerem Zzel/dpa/Picture Alliance

Human Rights Watch

Violation:  Unjustified detention of the applicant without reasonable suspicion that he had committed an offence, with the ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate; unforeseeable lifting of parliamentary immunity and subsequent criminal proceedings to penalise the applicant for political speech.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1411/H46-39 (September 2021) 

Submissions:

LEVCHUK v. UKRAINE (Application No. 17496/19)

Violation: Failure to ensure the applicant’s protection from domestic violence

First Examination

Submissions:

KEBE AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE (Application No. 12552/12)

Violation: Lack of adequate safeguards in the border-control procedure to protect against arbitrary removal and lack of effective remedy.

Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2018)1331/H46-32 (December 2018)

Submissions:

McKERR GROUP v. UNITED KINGDOM (Application No. 28883/95)

Violation: Actions of security forces in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s; failure to conduct Article 2 - compliant investigations.

 Last Examination: CM/Del/Dec(2021)1398/H46-38 (March 2021)

Submissions:

Promo-LEX launches a new video about the non-implementation of the Catan and others v Russia case.

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These cases concern the violation of the right to education of 170 children or parents of children from Latin-script schools located in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova. Pursuant to the “Moldavian Republic of Transdniestria” (“MRT”) “law” on languages, they suffered from the forced closure of these schools between August 2002 and July 2004, together with measures of harassment.

The European Court of Human Rights held that the Russian Federation exercised effective control over the “MRT” during the period in question and that by virtue of its continued military, economic and political support for the “MRT”, which could not otherwise survive, the Russian Federation incurred responsibility under the Convention for the violation of the applicants’ rights to education.

However, since the judgment has become final, almost 9 years ago, and despite the adoption of 3 interim resolutions and 18 decisions by the Committee of Ministers, little progress has been made. The payment of the just satisfaction is still delayed. The “MRT” laws limiting the use of Latin script in schools are still in force. 20% of the applicants have left the Republic of Moldova since the judgment has become final, and several of the 170 applicants have died. The schools are dying too, due to the ongoing harassment on pupils and teachers.

The video gives the floor to teachers, headmasters, pupils and Promo-LEX strategic development adviser Alexandru Postica, providing an insight into the problems which pupils and teachers are facing every day. Pupils are still not able to attend schools in adequate premises. Following the forced closure of schools, the school administrations had to rent buildings which were not conceived for educational purposes: many children still do not have access to sport facilities or canteens. Obstacles to the freedom of movement of children and teachers are also considerable. Pupils have to travel a long distance everyday to go to school, sometimes up to 25 km each way, and school buses are stopped at the so-called Transnistrian customs for daily passport controls. Systemic harassment to forbid the use of Latin script and of the Romanian language also concerns people beyond the applicants from the Catan case, as shown by the Iovcec and others v Russia case.

Promo-LEX calls for the schools to be allowed to re-integrate to their previous buildings. These were designed for educational purposes, and would allow for better teaching conditions both for school staff members and pupils. They call on to the Committee of Ministers to request from the Russian authorities the immediate payment of just satisfaction and the submission of an Action Plan on how they intend to implement the judgment. Promo-LEX also requests the Committee to refer the case to the European Court in line with the procedure under Article 46 § 4 of the European Convention and to consider it at every meeting until its full execution.

EIN is grateful to its member organisation Promo-Lex in this excellent video. It serves as a strong example of dynamic advocacy, which will be of great interest to other EIN members.