European Rights Watch

Russia’s Criminal Investigation Procedures Don’t Comply with Convention on Human Rights

By: Jacob Tyson

Impunity Watch Staff Writer

STRASBOURG, France – On February 4, 2020, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) found the Russian government responsible for 29 cases of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment by police officers, violations of Article 3 and Article 13 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and awarded 835,000 euros in pecuniary damages to the victims. The treatment the victims received included electric shock, strangulation, needles being placed under fingernails, rape, and threats of torture toward family members.

Man is arrested by Russian law enforcement. Photo Courtesy of The Moscow Times/AP.

The case revolved around whether the complaints were credible and admissible even though they relied on faulty investigations. The Court opined that medical examinations, especially in cases of ill-treatment toward prisoners and detainees, are an essential safeguard of human life and the justice process. However, without this information, human rights investigations can be inadmissible in court. Here, multiple applicants were not examined until weeks after their complaints of torture. Upon examination, the forensic experts were not provided with enough information which made it impracticable for the experts to create an accurate picture of what happened to these prisoners. The experts, instead, relied on the pre-investigation inquiry by the Russian authorities.

According to the Court, this was an inadequate effort by the Russian government. The Court held that the mere carrying out of a pre-investigation inquiry under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation is insufficient to comply with Article 3 of the Convention. “It is incumbent on the authorities to institute criminal proceedings and conduct a proper criminal investigation in which a full range of investigative measures are carried out,” the Court wrote.

This could have a significant impact on criminal procedure in Russia, as well as other Council of Europe member states, to ensure more thorough and accurate investigations into police brutality and inhumane prison practices. However, since 2015, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, signed a bill allowing the Constitutional Court to circumvent rulings of the ECHR and any other rulings by international human rights bodies in an effort to protect Russian legal sovereignty. It is unlikely this ruling will affect the way Russia conducts its investigations in the future or in its 15,000 currently pending ECHR applications.

For further information, please see:

European Court of Human Rights – Applications nos. 47821/09 against Russia – 4 Feb. 2020

МБХ – ЕСПЧ Присудил Россиянам 1 Млн Евро за Незаконные Обыски и Пытки в Полиции – 4 Feb. 2020

The Moscow Times – Russia Ordered to Pay $1M to Police Brutality Victims – 5 Feb. 2020

ECHR Rules Spain Did Not Breach the Convention in Returning Migrants to Morocco

By: Nadia Abed

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

STRASBOURG, France — On February 13, 2020, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) ruled that Spain did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”) in returning migrants to Morocco for attempting to cross the fences onto European Union territory in the case of N.D. and N.T. v. Spain.

Police office scales fence climbed by migrants at Melilla border. Photo Courtesy of AFP.

On August 13, 2014, hundreds of migrants attempted to storm their way onto European Union territory by scaling fences to reach the city of Melilla, a Spanish enclave surrounded by Moroccan territory. Moroccan police were able to prevent about 500 migrants from scaling the outer fence, but around a hundred migrants succeeded, with 75 migrants reaching the top of the fence and a few landing on the other side on Spanish soil. Those who reached the soil were met by members of the Guardia Civil, the Spanish law enforcement, while others remained at the top of the fence.

Two individuals, N.D., a national of Mali, and N.T., a national of Côte d’Ivoire (“the applicants”), were of the few that remained at the top of the fence. After a few hours, the two climbed down and were apprehended by the Guardia Civil who “reportedly handcuffed them, took them back to Morocco and handed them over to the Moroccan authorities.”

The applicants lodged applications with the ECHR on February 12, 2015 alleging that there had been a violation of Protocol No. 4 Article 4 which prohibits collective expulsion of aliens and Article 13 which secures the right to an effective remedy. Through both Articles, the applicants claim that they were forced back to Morocco with “no chance to explain their circumstances, no chance to request asylum, and no chance to appeal their expulsion.”

On October 2, 2017, in its Chamber judgment, the Court held that there was a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 and a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 4 of Protocol No. 4. On December 14, 2017, the Spanish Government requested the case be referred to the Grand Chamber under Article 43 of the Convention. On January 29, 2018 the Grand Chamber accepted and a hearing was held on September 26, 2018.

The Court reasoned that the applicants had attempted to enter Spanish territory in an unauthorized manner by taking advantage of a large crowd. In accordance with the Convention, States are required to “make available genuine and effective access to means of legal entry [and] should allow all persons who faced persecution to submit an application for protection.” As a result of not using the proper channels, States can refuse entry to their territories to aliens and asylum-seekers who fail, without convincing reason, to follow such requirements.

Regarding the applicants Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 claim, the Court noted that Spanish law had several possible means available to those seeking admission to their territory, such as applications for visas or international protection, therefore the State had provided genuine and effective access to its territory. Applicants’ did not allege they tried to enter Spanish territory by any legal means. The court concluded that the applicants had “placed themselves in jeopardy by participating in the storming of the border fences [and their expulsion was a] consequence of their own conduct.”

Regarding the applicants’ Article 13 claim taken in conjunction with Article 4 of Protocol No. 4, the Court explains that “the lack of an [individualized] procedure for [the applicants’] procedure for their removal had been the consequence of the applicants’ own conduct in placing themselves in an unlawful situation by crossing the Melilla border protection structures… at an [unauthorized] location.” Further, the Court concluded that there had not been a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 or Article 13 in conjunction with Article 4 of Protocol No. 4.

European Court of Human Rights – Forthcoming Grand Chamber judgment in a case concerning the immediate return of two migrants who tried to enter Spain by climbing the fences of the Melilla enclave – 6 Feb. 2020

European Court of Human Rights – Spain did not breach the Convention in returning migrants to Morocco who had attempted to cross the fences of the Melilla enclave – 12 Feb. 2020

European Court of Human Rights – Case of N.D. and N.T. v. Spain – 12 Feb. 2020

The Local Spain – Spain cleared by European Court of Human Rights over Removal of migrants at border fence – 13 Feb. 2020

European Court of Human Rights Hears Syrian National’s Case for Family Reunification

By: Melissa Berouty

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

STRASBOURG, France — On March 18, 2020, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) will hear the case of M.A. v. Denmark, regarding the denial of family reunification. According to the Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights (“the Commissioner”), “[f]amily reunification procedures allow foreign nationals residing in Council of Europe member states to request permission to bring members of their family to join them, and to re-establish family life on the territory of their member state of residence.” The Commissioner has stated that family separation of individuals with international protection has been the root of “depression, anxiety, and feelings of guilt for leaving family members behind in dangerous situations.” These subsequent effects lead to difficulty in integration, including breaking through potential language barriers. Commonly, the integration process does not fully commence until the family reunification process is complete.

In January 2015, M.A., the applicant and a Syrian national, entered into Denmark seeking asylum. M.A. was granted temporary protection for a one-year period, under Section 7, subsection 3 of the Aliens Act, which offers protection for “individuals who face capital punishment, torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment due to severe instability and indiscriminate violence against civilians in their home country.” Since then, M.A.’s residence permit has been extended in one-year increments.

In November 2015, M.A. requested to be reunited with his wife of twenty-five years, who was residing in Syria. Typically, under Danish law, an individual with temporary protection under section 7, subsection 3 of the Aliens Act must have a residence permit for more than three years for family reunification. Given this, in September 2016, M.A.’s request was denied by the Immigration Appeals Board, given the standard set by Danish law and a lack of “special reasons” to justify family reunification before the three-year threshold.

Following the denial of his application in early 2017, M.A. filed a complaint arguing that Denmark’s refusal of a family reunion was a direct violation of his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”). M.A. argues that Danish law is discriminatory given that if he had been offered a “higher degree of protection,” he would be eligible for a family reunion within one year rather than three. In May 2017, the High Court of Eastern Denmark ruled against M.A.

On appeal, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court of Eastern Denmark’s decision. Here, the Supreme Court found no violation of the Convention stating, “the difference in treatment in the right to a family reunion had been justified by the fact that some groups of individuals had required greater protection.” On January 30, 2018, M.A.’s case was brought before the ECHR.

Here, M.A. again claims a violation of his rights under the Convention, specifically prohibition of discrimination under Article 14 in conjunction with the right to a family life under Article 8. On September 7, 2018, the Danish government was given notice, pursuant to Rule 54 of the local Court Rules, that “an application against the State is pending before the Court.” On November 19, 2019, jurisdiction was relinquished to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR.

According to the Commissioner, Denmark’s family reunification laws and policies have been in discussion for nearly fifteen years. In January 2016, the Commissioner’s predecessor contacted the Danish Minister expressing concerns over the waiting periods set forth in section 7, subsection 3 of the Aliens Act, particularly in its compatibility with Article 8 of the Convention. On January 31, 2019, the Commissioner expressed her recommendation to the Danish Government that “[w]aiting periods of over one year are inappropriate for refugees and for their family members.” Further, the Commissioner noted that Syrian individuals are being disproportionately affected, following the 1951 Refugee Convention. On March 18, 2020, the Grand Chamber hearing of M.A. v. Denmark will commence to decide on this issue.

For further information, please see:

ECHR – M.A. v. Denmark (relinquishment) – November 2019

ECHR – Relinquishment in favour of the Grand Chamber M.A. v. Denmark – 11 Nov. 2019

Council of Europe – Third party Intervention by the Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights – 31 Jan. 2019

Finland Sanctioned by the European Court of Human Rights Following the Murder of Expelled Asylum Seeker

By: Susan Mintz

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor 

HELSINKI, Finland — The European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) has sanctioned Finland in relation to the murder of an Iraqi asylum seeker. His claim for asylum was denied after Finnish authorities determined he was not likely to be in danger of persecution in Iraq. Following his expulsion to Iraq in December of 2017, within weeks of his return he was shot and killed. An application against the Republic of Finland was submitted by his daughter to the ECHR for violating Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Iraqi asylum seeker’s daughter, who fled with him and her brother to Finland, requested the court not use her name as was referred to in the judgment as N.A.

N.A.’s father was a Sunni Muslim man from Baghdad. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime he served as an army major. After the U.S. invasion he worked with an American logistics company before becoming a civil servant in the Office of the Inspector General, where he was the only one with a Sunni background. In his last year at the Office, as the lead officer his work included conducting internal investigations, dealing with human rights crimes, and corruption.

In early 2015, a coworker physically assaulted and threatened to kill N.A.’s father following a disagreement. Shortly after the incident, his attacker was transferred to the intelligence service and promoted. In February, an attempt on his life was made when he was shot at leaving work. When the police failed to follow up on his report of the shooting, N.A.’s father resigned his job due to the lack of protection offered by the Iraqi authorities. He and his wife went into hiding after narrowly surviving a car bomb. After the applicant, N.A., escaped an attempted kidnapping, N.A. fled with her father and brother to Finland and applied for asylum.

The Finnish Immigration Service found N.A.’s father credible and accepted the facts established by his account of his history and the events leading up to his flight from Iraq. Nevertheless, his asylum claim was denied because the Service determined that attack by his coworker was a personal matter and the attempts on his life were part of the general violence in Baghdad and not specifically directed at him or related to his Sunni background. His appeals to the Administrative Court and Supreme Administrative Court were denied without permitting oral argument. Under an enforceable order of removal, N.A.’s father returned to Iraq under Finland’s voluntary returns program on November 29, 2017. Following his return, N.A. learned that her aunt’s home, where the family had been in hiding, had been attacked. She learned of her father’s murder a few weeks later.

The ECHR ruled that Finland violated N.A.’s father’s right to life under Article 2 and the prohibition on torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 because the authorities knew or should have known that conditions in Iraq and his personal circumstances presented a real risk of persecution or death of N.A.’s father in Iraq. In reaching this finding, the ECHR rejected claims by Finnish authorities that N.A.’s father had waived all claims under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms when he accepted voluntary return, and that he failed to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood of future persecution.

While the ECHR declined to rule on whether rights under Article 2 and 3 could ever be waived, under the circumstances of this case there was no waiver of rights. To waive a right, the waiver must be under free will, unequivocal and attended by minimum safeguards. Although N.A.’s father used the voluntary return program, the court found that he did not have a genuinely free choice in the matter given that the alternative was detention and forced deportation to Iraq, which would alert the Iraqi authorities of his presence.

The ECHR also found that the Finnish Immigration Service failed to properly assess the asylum claim of N.A.’s father. By finding he credibly established the facts of his account, the Finnish Immigration Service necessarily accepted as true his background, work history, the attempts on his life and the circumstances of his flight from Iraq. However, in evaluating N.A.’s father’s claim, the authorities failed to consider the accumulation of the factors that, taken together, showed an increased risk of persecution. In particular, the ECHR noted that his account supported an inference that the return of N.A.’s father would be of interest to Iraqi authorities, as well as non-State actors, showing that he was at risk of being a target of persecution.

Violence against Sunni Muslim men by Shia militias was well documented at the time the asylum decision was made, as were killings of Iraqis who had worked with Americans. While no single factor established a risk of harm or death, taken together all the circumstances accepted by the Finnish authorities clearly established the risk to N.A’s father.

In the wake of the ruling a suspension of deportations was announced by Minister of the Interior Maria Ohisalo, and the Helsinki Police Department. Although the Finnish Immigration Service previously claimed that voluntary return to Iraq had “succeeded to a fair extent,” the agency is now reviewing 500 orders of expulsion to Iraq. 

For further information, please see:

European Court of Human Rights – Application no. 25244/18 N.A. against Finland – 23 May 2018

European Court of Human Rights – Case of N.A. v. Finland Judgment – 14 Nov. 2019

Finnish Minister of the Interior – Press Release – 14 Nov. 2019

Foreigner.FI – Police suspend deportations to Iraq after Human Rights Court sanction – 18 Nov. 2019

Russian Federation Violated Rights of Asylum-Seekers Trapped in Moscow Airport

By: Benjamin Kaufman

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

MOSCOW, Russian Federation – On November 21, 2019, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) affirmed a decision by the Chamber from 2017 declaring that the Russian Federation’s confinement of four individuals who sought asylum was a violation of their rights under Article 5 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 3 of the European Convention’s prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

The four applicants in this case were an Iraqi national, an individual holding a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority, a Somalian national, and a Syrian national. The four travelled independently and under different circumstances to Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow seeking asylum to the Russian Federation. Upon arrival, each of the four were stopped from leaving the “transit zone” within the airport while their asylum applications were submitted and processed. The transit zone of the airport was a constantly lit area in which they were required to sleep on mattresses placed within the constantly lit boarding area of the airport, without access to running water for a shower, and with only food rations provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”).

The individuals were unable to appeal or expedite the processing of their evaluation for asylum and were prevented from exiting the airport. In sum, three of individuals spent between five and eight months between 2015 and 2016 in the airport, while the fourth was in the zone for one year and eleven months between April 9, 2015 and March 9, 2017. By the time of the EHCR’s decision, the Iraqi and Syrian applicants were resettled by the UNHCR in Denmark and Sweden respectively while the other applicants took flights to Egypt and Mogadishu.

Three of the individuals filed their applications to the ECHR on December 12, 2015 while the fourth was lodged on January 14, 2016. The applications argued that their confinement had violated their Article 5 right to liberty and security under the European Convention on Human Rights and additionally that the conditions of the confinement were so abhorrent as to constitute inhuman and degrading treatment per Article 3 of the European Convention.

The Grand Chamber affirmed the earlier decision, finding that Article 5 applied to and was violated in the case of each of the four applicants. Further, the court found Russia’s confinement of the applicants to indeed be a violation of Article 3. The ECHR took particular care to dismiss the government’s contention that none of the applicants were on Russian territory while kept in the transit zone and that Russian laws therefore did not apply to them. The court was quick to assert that in fact the applicants were within Russian territory during the periods of their confinement and that their confinement was thus subject to the Russian statutory procedures for seeking asylum.

With respect to these claims, the EHCR noted that its decision in this case would be relevant to other states challenged by the influx of refugees and migrants. However, the Grand Chamber of the EHCR specifically stated that the burdens on states due to asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees could not be used to justify degrading and inhumane treatment of the same in violation of the human rights enshrined within the European Convention.

For further information, please see:

European Court of Human Rights – Asylum-seekers’ confinement to an airport transit zone for a long time in poor conditions violated their human rights – 21 Nov. 2019

European Court of Human Rights – Asylum seekers’ detention in Moscow airport transit zone was unlawful, inhuman and degrading – 21 Mar. 2017