Application lodged in case of Georgia v. Russia declared admissible
July 5th, 2009 0:20
The European Court of Human Rights has declared admissible the application lodged in the case of Georgia v. Russia. The Court’s admissibility decision in no way prejudges the merits of the Georgian Government’s complaints. The Court will deliver its judgment at a later date.
The case concerns the alleged harassment of the Georgian immigrant population in the Russian Federation following the arrest in Tbilisi on 27 September 2006 of four Russian service personnel on suspicion of espionage against Georgia.
On 26 March 2007 the Georgian authorities lodged with the Court’s Registry an application against the Russian Federation under Article 33 (Inter-State cases) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Georgian Government maintained that the reaction of the Russian authorities to the incident in September 2006 had amounted to an administrative practice of the official authorities giving rise to specific and continuing breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols under different provisions, including prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, right to liberty, right to respect for private and family life, right to an effective remedy, prohibition of discrimination, limitation on the use of restrictions on rights; protection of property, right to education; prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens, procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens.
These breaches were said to have derived, in particular, from widespread arrests and detention of the Georgian immigrant population in the Russian Federation creating a generalised threat to security of the person and multiple, arbitrary interferences with the right to liberty. The Georgian Government also complained of the conditions in which `at least 2,380 Georgians` had been detained. They asserted that the collective expulsion of Georgians from the Russian Federation had involved a systematic and arbitrary interference with these persons’ legitimate right to remain in Russia – a right duly evidenced by regular documents – as well as with the requirements of due process and statutory appeal process. In addition having closed the land, air and maritime border between the Russian Federation and Georgia, thereby interrupting all postal communication, had allegedly frustrated access to remedies for the persons affected.