CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 11 décembre 2025

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Georgia [GC] - 13186/20, 16757/20, 20129/21 et al. Judgment 11.12.2025 [GC] Article 3 Degrading treatment Inhuman treatment Deficient legal framework and application regarding the use of kinetic impact projectiles by the police to disperse a demonstration before the Parliament building: violation Article 10 Article 10-1 Freedom of expression Unjustified and disproportionate use of force by the police against journalists during the dispersal of a demonstration before the Parliament building: violation Article 11 Article 11-1 Freedom of peaceful assembly Unjustified and disproportionate use of force by the police during the dispersal of a demonstration before the Parliament building: violation Article 34 Individual applications   No valid basis for the Court to refrain from examining part of the applicants’ complaints under Art   3 (substantive), 10 and   11 Facts – The case arose out of the dispersal of a demonstration in front of the Georgian Parliament in June 2019. The twenty-six applicants – most of whom were participants in that demonstration and journalists covering it – were all injured during that dispersal. All of them took part in the ensuing, and still ongoing, criminal investigation into the force used by the police to disperse the demonstration. The protest was sparked by a prominent member of the Russian State Duma’s sitting in the Speaker’s chair in the Georgian Parliament and delivering a speech in Russian as part of a session of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. In a judgment delivered on 7   May 2024 a Chamber of the Court declared the complaints of twenty-four applicants under Article   3 of the Convention admissible (and the complaints of the other two applicants under that Article inadmissible) and found a violation of the procedural limb of Article   3. It refrained, by six votes to one, from taking a decision on the merits of the complaints under the substantive limb of Article   3 and on the admissibility and merits of the complaints under Articles   10 and 11. It also held, unanimously, that Georgia had complied with its obligations under Article   38. Lastly, it held, unanimously, that there was no need to examine the complaints under Article   13. On 23   September 2024 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the request of the applicants in four of the applications. Law – Preliminary remarks: whether it was open to the Court to refrain from deciding parts of the case – The Grand Chamber first addressed the question whether there was a valid basis and reason that could allow it to refrain from taking a final decision on the merits of the complaints under the substantive limb of Article   3 and on the admissibility and merits of those under Articles   10 and 11 as the Chamber had done. (1) Non-examination of overlapping or peripheral complaints – It was open to the Court not to examine complaints which fully, or to some extent, overlapped with complaints which it had already examined because they related to the same facts and concerned issues which were part of – and were thus absorbed by – the broader issues already examined. Also, when faced with a complaint under two Convention provisions which, on the facts of the case before it, governed the same subject matter but differed in their level of specificity ( lex generalis and lex specialis ), the Court normally examined the complaint solely under the latter, sometimes construing it in the light of the former. However, in the present case, it was clear that the complaints under the substantive limb of Article   3 did not overlap with those under its procedural limb either in terms of the underlying facts or in terms of the nature and scope of the obligations concerned: the former concerned the use of force to disperse the demonstration and the latter the effectiveness of the ensuing investigation, and the substantive and procedural obligations under Article   3, though linked, were distinct. Similarly, although the complaints under Articles   10 and 11 had arisen out of the same facts as those under the substantive limb of Article   3, they did not overlap with them, there being a difference in the nature of the interests safeguarded by those provisions. Nor could Article   3 be seen as a lex   specialis in relation to Articles   10 and 11, or vice versa. Indeed, the Court had already examined concurrently complaints under Articles   3 and 10 or 11 in other cases. Furthermore, though it was open to the Court to confine its examination to the main legal question(s) in an application and find that that there was no need to give a separate ruling on the remaining complaints, in the instant case the complaints under the provisions at issue were all plainly central to the case. Lastly, the Grand Chamber distinguished the case from those where it had, exceptionally, refrained from examining individualised complaints raising issues outside the core issue decided by it, since the present applications were not part of a large group whose full examination would risk overwhelming the Court, and the core issues in them were the substantive ones arising under Articles   3, 10 and 11. (2) Adjournment or striking out of part of the case – (a) Adjournment – The Grand Chamber noted that it might adjourn the examination of a case as a whole for various reasons. It might also adjourn part of a case in two different situations; firstly, to deal with the various issues arising in a case – admissibility, merits and just satisfaction – in discrete sequential steps; and secondly, as a first step, to deal with the admissibility of some complaints in an application, and then, as a second step, with the admissibility of the remaining complaints. Although it had not yet been done in a case originating in an individual application, but only in two inter-State cases, it was also open to the Court to examine the merits of some complaints as a first step (while adjourning the examination of the merits of the remaining complaints), and then to examine the merits of the remaining complaints as a second step. The adjourned part of the case remained pending before the Court and was subject to all the safeguards applying to a pending case lodged in the exercise of the right to application – including the Court’s policies on the order of dealing with applications – until the Court disposed of it by way of a final decision or judgment. However, the Grand Chamber observed that such two-step examination of the merits of a case – which prima facie ran counter to procedural economy, and could lead to a duplication of effort, delay, and needless procedural complexity – should be contemplated only if truly required in the interests of the proper administration of justice. In the present case, however, it was not appropriate to adjourn the examination of the complaints under the substantive limb of Article   3 and those under Articles   10 and 11 pending the completion of the domestic criminal investigation. First, the Grand Chamber had before it all the material that it needed to determine all the issues under those provisions in the light of its settled relevant case-law. Secondly, the substantive issues were not limited to those capable of being determined in a domestic criminal case. They were broader and concerned not only the liability of specific State officials for the treatment to which the applicants had been subjected, but also the respondent State’s liability under the Convention – which comprised also the quality of the domestic legal framework. Lastly, the alleged breaches were of a serious nature, both as regards the individual applicants and the overall situation in the respondent State. (b) Striking out – The complaints under the substantive limb of Article   3 and those under Articles   10 and 11 could not be struck out under Article   37 §   1 on any of the grounds set out in sub-paragraphs (a) to (c). Exceptionally, the Court could strike out part of an application under Article   37 §   1 (c) to enable the appropriate domestic court to deal with that part of the case in the light of the Court’s findings in relation to the remainder. Such a step should only be taken with due care, and only in cases in which that would be clearly compatible with the proper administration of justice, and consistent with respect for human rights. Any such partial striking out would also have to be circumscribed by appropriate safeguards, such as the extent to which the authorities of the respondent State could be expected to cooperate with such an exercise, and the likelihood of attaining concrete and practical results. However, it was not appropriate to strike out the complaints in the present case under the above exceptional scenario: the alleged substantive breaches had already materialised, they were of a serious nature; and the prospects of any enhanced dialogue with the respondent State’s authorities, and of attaining concrete and practical results, appeared slim. (3) Conclusion – Accordingly, the course adopted by the Chamber in refraining from examining the admissibility and/or merits of the complaints at issue was not open to the Grand Chamber which was thus required to examine them. Article   3: (1) Procedural limb – The Grand Chamber saw no reason to assess the effectiveness of the investigation differently from the Chamber. All the shortcomings that the Chamber had identified with regard to the investigation of both the use of kinetic impact projectiles and the physical ill-treatment appeared to persist. Nor had there been any tangible progress since the subsequent reassignment of the investigation to the Special Investigation Service. Conclusion: preliminary objection joined to the merits and dismissed (exhaustion of domestic remedies); violation (unanimously) with respect to the twenty-four applicants whose complaints had been declared admissible. (2) Substantive limb – (a) Injuries caused by kinetic impact projectiles (twenty applicants) – (i) Source and nature of the injuries – Even though the demonstration had started as a peaceful civil and political protest it had escalated into a violent confrontation when some of the demonstrators had attempted to break through the police cordon to force their way into the Parliament building. The police had dispersed it by use of force. The Government had not contested that the injuries suffered by the twenty applicants had been caused by kinetic impact projectiles fired by the police, and that appeared to be fully confirmed by the available evidence. All of the injuries suffered, and not only the most serious ones, had been sufficient to reach the threshold of Article   3 – on account also of the general risk to life and health posed by the improper use of such weapons. (ii) Duty to account for the use of force resulting in the injuries – The broad-brush explanations given by the Government did not suffice to permit a conclusion that the use of force which had caused the injuries suffered by each of the applicants had been strictly necessary and proportionate, as required by the Court’s case-law. The Grand Chamber accepted, as did the Chamber, that, in view of the scale of the disorder and the violent conduct of some of the demonstrators, individual officers might have been justified, in the heat of the moment, in firing kinetic impact projectiles to contain violent demonstrators and avert an honestly perceived danger to their own lives or those of others. There was, however, neither evidence nor assertions by the Government, with detailed reference to the individual circumstances of each of those applicants, that their injuries had been the inevitable consequence of their own conduct or the use of such projectiles to contain violent demonstrators. Consequently, it had not been shown that the use of the kinetic impact projectiles which had injured the applicants had been strictly necessary and proportionate. (iii) Regulation of use by the police of kinetic impact projectiles in the course of demonstrations – (α) Relevant case-law of the Court – According to the Court’s case-law, policing operations involving the use of less-lethal weapons had to be sufficiently delimited by domestic law, under a system of adequate and effective safeguards against arbitrary action, misuse of force and avoidable accidents. The Court had had the opportunity to examine, under Article   3 or Article   2, depending on the circumstances, the use of various types of less-lethal weapons in policing demonstrations and mass disorder. That included kinetic impact projectiles. In that context the Court had examined – alongside other matters and with reference to the specific characteristics of each of the weapons and their capacity to cause physical injury – whether domestic law had adequately circumscribed their use. The following principles had emerged: – The domestic legal framework must lay down clear and sufficiently detailed guidelines – tailored to the characteristics of the specific weapon at issue and the specific health risks associated with its use – about the circumstances in which such weapons might be used and the manner in which they might be used, consistently with international standards. In particular, the guidelines must provide that those weapons be used in a safe manner, and proscribe their being used in a way which could result in death or injury. – The domestic legal framework must contain adequate and effective safeguards against arbitrary action, misuse, and avoidable accidents in the use of such weapons. General provisions laying down broad proportionality requirements – as opposed to more specific guidelines – have been considered by the Court to be insufficient. (β) Considerations arising from the technical characteristics of kinetic impact projectiles and their potential effects on human health – The technical characteristics of kinetic impact projectiles and the health risks that they posed – as set out in, for instance, the United Nations Human Rights Guidance on the Use of Less Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement – demonstrated that their use could easily turn into a disproportionate use of force, especially in situations in which they were fired on a large scale. As noted by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), they were very high on the use-of-force continuum, and, if used incorrectly, could cause death or serious injury. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had also noted that they could become lethal if used in a certain manner, which had prompted the Assembly to call on member States to regulate their use “more strictly in order to include more adequate and effective safeguards to minimise the risk of death and injury resulting from their use and abuse and from avoidable accidents”. The Grand Chamber reiterated that States must have in place rules and precautions ensuring that if kinetic impact projectiles were deployed by the police during a demonstration, their use was appropriately circumscribed. In that connection it referred to the recommendation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ODIHR and the Venice Commission. In view of those standards, which largely coincided with the Court’s case-law, the Grand Chamber considered that domestic law had to, at a minimum, lay down the following requirements: – that kinetic impact projectiles be used only as a last resort, in response to genuine and imminent threats to life or limb;   – that they be deployed only in a targeted manner, rather than as a means of general crowd control, and in such a way (having due regard to the technical characteristics of the model used) as to minimise the risk to the targeted person’s life and health; – that multiple projectiles (on account of their inherent imprecision) and projectiles containing metal (on account of their increased capacity to cause serious injury) not be used; – that their use must follow an appropriate warning, unless such warning was clearly unfeasible; – that kinetic impact projectiles be deployed only by law-enforcement officers who had been properly instructed and trained, not only about the projectiles’ technical characteristics, but also about the risks that they might pose to life and health; – that the deployment of kinetic impact projectiles be subjected, in so far as possible, to a strict chain of command and control. (γ) Assessment of the Georgian legal framework and its application in the present case in the light of the above considerations – The Grand Chamber examined the legal framework in Georgia at the relevant time, as it had been presented in the current proceedings, and its application in the present case. In that respect, it found that the framework and its application had been deficient. Specifically: – It appeared that the police had used kinetic impact projectiles as a general crowd‑control weapon rather than a targeted one, and had reportedly fired numerous multiple-projectile rounds – which were inherently impossible to use in a targeted manner. It was striking that about 800 kinetic impact projectiles had been fired over a period of about three to four hours, in the course of a demonstration comprising about 12,000 people and policed by about 5,000 officers. – The officers had often fired those projectiles in such a way that they had hit people in the head and the upper body. Injuries to those areas had been suffered by seventeen applicants and reportedly many other people. – There was no indication that officers had given a warning before firing kinetic impact projectiles; on the contrary, the authorities had considered that it had not been necessary. – The above factors gave rise to legitimate questions about the training provided on the correct use of less-lethal weapons. It had not been shown in the present proceedings that the officers who had fired kinetic impact projectiles had been specifically trained on the risks that they could pose to life and limb. – Frontline officers appeared to have acted, overall, independently and on their own initiative with regard to the use of kinetic impact projectiles, suggesting uncertainty about whether their use had been subject to a strict chain of command. Conclusion: violation (unanimously) with respect to each of the twenty applicants who had been injured by kinetic impact projectiles. (b) Alleged physical ill-treatment (four applicants) – The Grand Chamber found that the injuries of the applicants concerned had been sufficiently serious to reach the threshold of Article   3. The Government had not contested that the injuries had resulted – as plausibly alleged by the applicants – from force used by the police or given any alternative explanation for their cause. Nor had the Government put forward any arguments to show that the use of force which had caused those injuries had been strictly necessary and proportionate. Indeed, they did not specifically address the situation of any of those applicants. Lastly, there was no evidence of conduct on the part of the applicants that would have justified   any use of force against them. Conclusion: violation (unanimously) with respect to the four applicants. Article   10: (1) Existence of an interference (fourteen applicants) – The Grand Chamber found that the force used by the police against the applicants concerned – kinetic impact projectiles with respect to thirteen applicants, – all hit while covering the events in their capacity as journalists, and physical force to remove one journalist from the courtyard of the Parliament building while he was transmitting live coverage of the events – had amounted to an interference with their rights under that provision. Even if the injuries suffered by two of the applicants had not been as serious and their Article   3 complaints in that respect had been declared inadmissible by the Chamber, the very fact that they had been hit by projectiles, which had occurred while they had been carrying out their journalistic activities, had to be considered as amounting to such interference. The Grand Chamber considered that there was no need to establish whether the applicants in issue had been deliberately targeted on account of their being journalists. Any use of force by the authorities which had affected their information gathering, and by implication their ability to report on the demonstration, had amounted to an interference with the exercise of their right to freedom of expression. Nor was the existence of an interference negated by the fact that some of them had been able to continue reporting even after having being hit. (2) Justification for the interference – The Grand Chamber considered that it did not need to come to a definitive conclusion on whether the interference had been “prescribed by law” and whether it had pursued a legitimate aim. The salient issue was the necessity of the interference. It first found that there was no basis on which to accept, irrespective of the tensions which had developed during the demonstration, that it had been justified and proportionate for the police to use force to remove one of the applicants from the courtyard of the Parliament building. As regards the remaining thirteen applicants, there had been no indication that any of them had engaged in any conduct justifying the use of kinetic impact projectiles specifically against them. In so far as it could be argued that their injuries had been the inevitable consequence of the use of such projectiles to contain violent demonstrators, the Court referred to its analysis under Article   3 and more specifically, to the insufficient broad-brush explanations by the Government, the apparent use of kinetic impact projectiles by the police as a general crowd-control weapon rather than a targeted one, and the apparent firing of numerous multiple-projectile rounds which were inherently impossible to use in a targeted manner. It was true that the strict-necessity test under Article   3 differed from the test of necessity in a democratic society under Article   10 §   2. Specifically, the former excluded any margin of appreciation for the national authorities. In the present case, however, that was of no consequence since, it could not be accepted that the use of force against the applicants had fallen within any acceptable margin of appreciation available to the Georgian authorities. Indeed, it would be paradoxical to find that treatment falling foul of the absolute prohibition in Article   3 was nonetheless proportionate under Article   10 – the Convention had to be read as a whole and interpreted in such a way as to promote internal consistency and harmony between its various provisions. In those circumstances, it could not be said that the injuries inflicted on the applicants in question had inevitably followed from their covering chaotic and violent events. Nor was there any basis to argue that they had taken unjustified risks which had made them more susceptible to being injured while doing so. There was also a further aspect to the necessity analysis: it appeared that most of the applicants in issue had been identifiable as journalists. In that connection the Court emphasised that the Contracting States had a duty under Article   10 to have in place an effective system of protection of journalists. According to Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and Resolution 2532 (2024) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , that system must encompass measures ensuring the safety of journalists in situations of large-scale violence erupting in the course of public protests. The Venice Commission had also made a number of recommendations in that respect. In conclusion, the interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression had not been justified and proportionate, and thus had not been “necessary in a democratic society”. Conclusion: complaints admissible (by a majority); violation (unanimously) with respect to the fourteen applicants. Article   11 (eleven applicants): (1) Applicability – The Grand Chamber held that the applicants in question enjoyed the protection of Article   11 and that their complaints were compatible ratione materiae with it. The available material did not permit a conclusion that the protest had clearly identifiable organisers before it had started and that it had been meant to be anything other than peaceful or that its participants – and the applicants in particular – had had violent intentions when joining it. The Grand Chamber took into account the seriousness of the situation and the need to ensure the effective functioning of Parliament – which was a key value in a democratic society. Furthermore, authorities had been faced with a difficult task in preserving public order. However, even assuming that the statements that had been made by some politicians present at the scene might have negatively affected the subsequent developments, that element – whether taken alone or together with the relatively limited group of protestors trying to storm the Parliament building – could not deprive several thousand peaceful protestors, including the applicants concerned, of their rights under Article   11. There was evidence of violent conduct only in respect of one of the applicants concerned but the Grand Chamber considered that he had not by that fact lost the protection of Article   11. The violent conduct in which it had been recorded that he had engaged (holding a shield which he had apparently seized from a police officer, resisting the police with his hands, kicking an officer’s shield, and waving the shield that he had seized in the direction of that officer), had apparently occurred after the beginning of the clashes, had been sporadic and had not resulted in any officer getting injured. Rather than altogether exclude the applicability of Article   11, his conduct might have implications for the assessment of whether any interference with his rights under that Article   had been justified. Conclusion: complaints admissible (by a majority); violation (unanimously) in relation to the eleven applicants and the preliminary objection ( ratione materiae ) joined to the merits dismissed. (2) Existence of an interference – The use of force against the applicants during the demonstration and its dispersal – consisting in being hit by kinetic impact projectiles in the cases of eight applicants and physical ill-treatment in the cases of three applicants had amounted to an interference with the exercise of their right to freedom of assembly. (3) Justification for the interference – As under Article   10, the Grand Chamber left open the questions whether the interference had been “prescribed by law” and had pursued a legitimate aim, the salient issue being its necessity. Once the situation had escalated, the tensions between some of the demonstrators and the police had continued for more than two hours, with varying degrees of intensity, and it had been the persistent and violent conduct of the people in the front rows of the demonstration which had apparently led to the authorities’ decision to disperse it. Those developments had arguably justified the decision to disperse the demonstration. In that connection the Court reiterated the fundamental interest of ensuring the effective functioning of Parliament in a democracy. Even accepting, however, that the dispersal decision itself had been justified and proportionate, the way in which it had been put into effect had not been, irrespective of the wider margin of appreciation enjoyed by the Contracting States in such situations. It appeared that no order to disperse had been issued at the scene of the demonstration itself, and that no clearly audible warning had been given before the authorities resorted to “special means” – specifically kinetic impact projectiles – to disperse it. Since the authorities had plainly anticipated that there had been a risk that the demonstration might escalate, it could not be said that they had been overwhelmed or that operational reasons had prevented them from communicating with the demonstrators more clearly. More importantly, as already found under Article   3, no proper justification had been put forward for the force used against the applicants and thus it could not be accepted that it had been “necessary in a democratic society” within the meaning of Article   11 § 2. That was the case even for the applicant in respect of whom there was some evidence of violent conduct, since it had not been asserted, and no evidence had been submitted to show that the police had used force kinetic impact projectiles against him at a point when he had had to be contained, and that they had had no other means of doing so. In so far as it could be argued that the injuries of the eight applicants hit by kinetic impact projectiles had been the inevitable consequence of the use of such projectiles to contain violent demonstrators, as under Article   10, the Grand Chamber referred to its analysis under Article   3. As to the three applicants who had been physically ill-treated by the police, as found under Article   3, there was no evidence of conduct on their part that would have justified the use of force against them. The Grand Chamber’s analysis under Article   10 in relation to the necessity test vis-a-vis the strict-necessity test under Article   3 and to treatment falling foul of the absolute prohibition in the latter provision, was equally relevant to its analysis under Article   11. Furthermore, in all cases involving allegations that the use of force by the police to disperse a demonstration had been in breach of both Article   3 and Article   11 – a finding of a breach of the substantive limb of the former had invariably led to a finding of a breach of the latter as well. In some of those cases, the Court had even expressly linked the two assessments. Conclusion: complaints admissible (by a majority); violation (unanimously) with respect to the eleven applicants. Article   13: Given its findings under the procedural limb of Article   3, the Grand Chamber held, by sixteen votes to one, that there was no need to examine the admissibility and merits of this complaint separately. Article   38: The Grand Chamber found, unanimously, that the respondent State had not failed to comply with its duty under that provision. Article   46: The Grand Chamber indicated both individual and general measures. As regards individual measures, the respondent State had to carry out an effective investigation in compliance with Article   3 requirements, capable of, inter alia , identifying and if appropriate punishing those responsible, including senior police officers. In circumstances such as those at hand such an investigation needed to involve a systematic analysis of the events, encompass an evaluation of the legal basis, planning and execution of the police operation, and determine whether any responsibility on the part of those in charge of that operation’s planning and control had been engaged. All those steps had to be taken without delay and be concluded as quickly as possible. The Grand Chamber also indicated general measures consequent on its findings under the substantive limb of Article   3 in relation to the regulation of kinetic impact projectiles. In particular, the respondent State had to put in place adequate safeguards on the proper use of such projectiles, in such a way as to minimise the risks of death and injury stemming from their use, by laying down more detailed rules, in accordance with the principles set out under the substantive limb of Article   3. Article   41: (1) Whether an award was called for – Ten of the twenty-six applicants had sought compensation in the Georgian courts in respect of the damage they had suffered as a result of the breaches of Articles   3 (substantive limb), 10 and 11 established by the Court in the present case. Three of those cases were still pending at first instance; in seven cases awards had been made, of which two were final. However, that did not in itself bar the Court from awarding the applicants just satisfaction under Article   41 in relation to those heads of damage, in particular in the light of the nature of the breaches found in the case. Nor did the fact that those domestic proceedings were still pending necessarily constitute a reason to reserve the question of the application of Article   41. As applicants should not be able to derive double compensation or unjust enrichment from the Court’s judgments it took into account domestic awards of compensation already paid out up to the time when it dealt with the question of just satisfaction. There were, however, also other ways in which such double compensation could be avoided: – As the Court had noted in an array of cases, the easiest solution in respect of applicants whose domestic compensation claims were still pending when the Court’s judgment was delivered was for the domestic courts to take account of any awards made by the Court in respect of the same head of damage and adjust their own awards accordingly. – For applicants who had obtained final and enforceable domestic awards but where the respective sums had not yet been paid by the time-limit for the payment of the awards made in the Court’s judgment, double compensation could be avoided by adjusting those payments, by appropriate means under domestic law, in such a way as to take account of the Court’s award in respect of the same head of damage. – For applicants who had already received payment of the compensation awarded by the domestic courts by the time-limit for the payment of the awards made in the judgment at hand, double compensation could be avoided by deducting (as authorised in the Court’s judgment) those sums from any awards made by the Court in respect of the same head of damage. In the present case, there was no indication that, despite the compensation proceedings that ten out of the twenty-six applicants had brought in the Georgian courts, any of them had already obtained full reparation for the pecuniary or non-pecuniary consequences of the breaches found in the present case. An award was therefore called for. (2) Awards – (a) Pecuniary damage – The Grand Chamber recapitulated the principles for estimating sums necessary to make full reparation for future loss of income due to diminished earning capacity resulting from an injury and made an award to each of the four applicants who had claimed damages under this head: EUR 75,000 to two applicants and EUR 85,000 to the remaining two applicants. Any sums already paid to those applicants pursuant to awards in respect of pecuniary damage made by the Georgian courts by the date when the Court’s awards became due were to be deducted from those sums. (b) Non-pecuniary damage – The Grand Chamber awarded sums ranging between EUR   5,000 and EUR 30,000 to all the applicants. Any sums already paid to applicants pursuant to awards in respect of non-pecuniary damage made by the Georgian courts by the date when the Court’s awards became due were to be deducted from those sums.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. To access legal summaries in English or French click here . For non-official translations into other languages click here .