CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 7 décembre 2007

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Latvia (striking out) [GC] - 59643/00 Judgment 7.12.2007 [GC] Article 8 Article 8-1 Respect for family life Respect for private life Failure by the applicants, against whom deportation orders had been made, to act upon respondent Government’s proposals to regularise their immigration status: struck out Article 37 Article 37-1-b Matter resolved Failure by the applicants, against whom deportation orders had been made, to act upon respondent Government’s proposals to regularise their immigration status: struck out [This summary also covers the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Shevanova v. Lettonie , no.   58822/00, 7   December 2007] Facts : In both cases the applicants, who had been settled in Latvia for several years or decades, found themselves stateless following the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Latvian authorities refused to regularise their immigration status and took steps to have them expelled. According to the applicants, those steps infringed their right to respect for their private and family life. In 1970 the applicant Nina Shevanova , a Soviet national, settled in Latvia for work-related reasons. In 1973 she married a Latvian national, with whom she had a son. The couple divorced in 1980. In 1981, having lost her Soviet passport, the applicant was given a new passport; she found the lost passport in 1989 but did not return it to the relevant authorities. In 1991 the Soviet Union, of which the applicant had been a national until then, ceased to exist as a State, and she accordingly became stateless. She was registered as a permanent resident in Latvia, while her son was granted “permanently resident non-citizen” status there.   In 1994 a Latvian bridge-building firm offered the applicant work in the Caucasian regions of Russia bordering on Chechnya. In view of the difficulties caused by tighter supervision in these regions by the Russian authorities on account of the troubles in Chechnya, the firm advised her to obtain Russian citizenship and register officially as a resident in Russia before signing the employment contract. The applicant then had her first Soviet passport, the one she had found but not handed in to the authorities, stamped with a false certificate cancelling her registration as a resident in Latvia. She was registered in Russia at her brother’s address and obtained Russian citizenship. She then applied for “permanently resident non-citizen” status in Latvia. The Latvian Interior Ministry’s Nationality and Migration Department then discovered that the applicant had also registered as a resident in Russia and had completed certain formalities using the old passport which had been mislaid and found again. The Department decided in April 1998 to remove the applicant’s name from the register of residents and issued an order for her deportation and prohibiting her from re-entering Latvia for five years. All the applicant’s attempts to have the deportation order reviewed and lifted were in vain. In February 2001 the applicant was arrested and placed in a detention centre for illegal immigrants with a view to her forcible expulsion. When she was hospitalised for acute hypertension, execution of the forcible expulsion decision and the expulsion order were suspended, and the applicant was released and continued to reside illegally in Latvia. After the European Court of Human Rights declared her application admissible, the Latvian authorities offered, in February 2005, to regularise the applicant’s situation and issue her with a permanent residence permit, and invited her to submit the requisite documents. However, by the date on which the Strasbourg Court delivered its judgment, the applicant had not supplied the necessary documents. In 1982 the applicant Natella Kaftailova , a Soviet national then residing in Russia, married a Soviet civil servant employed by the USSR Ministry of the Interior. In 1984 the couple had a daughter and the family settled in Latvia. In July 1988 the applicant’s husband exchanged the accommodation he had previously been renting in Russia for the right to rent a State-owned flat in Riga, where he and his family moved in straight away. In March 1990 the applicant cancelled her formal registration of residence in Russia; the following month her husband registered her, without her knowledge or consent, as resident at the family's new address in Riga, and subsequently registered his own residence at that address. When she discovered this, the applicant had her name removed from the register in question. The couple divorced in October 1990. In 1991 the Soviet Union, the State of which the applicant had hitherto been a national, broke up. The applicant therefore became stateless. In February 1993 the applicant was granted the right to rent the room obtained by her former husband in a “duty residence” in 1987, and requested the Interior Ministry’s Nationality and Immigration Department to enter her name in the register of residents as a permanent resident of Latvia. In her request, however, she gave the address at which her ex-husband had unlawfully registered her, rather than the address in Riga at which she then lived. Initially, the Department granted her request. However, in July 1993 the Department cancelled the applicant's registration on the ground that the stamp in her passport was false. The registration stamp in fact proved to be authentic, but had been placed in the passport by the authorities in breach of the relevant regulations. In February 1994 the Department removed the applicant’s name from the register of residents, cancelled her personal identification code and quashed the judgment that had given her the right to rent the room she was living in. In January 1995 the Department served a deportation order on the applicant, ordering her to leave Latvia with her daughter, having discovered that on 1 July 1992, the decisive date laid down by law, the applicant had not had an officially registered permanent residence in Latvia. She ought therefore to have applied for a residence permit within one month of the date of entry into force, failing which she would be liable to be deported; the applicant, however, had omitted to do this. All the applicant’s attempts to have her situation regularised were to no avail. After the European Court of Human Rights declared her application admissible, the Latvian authorities offered, in January 2005, to regularise the applicant’s situation and issue her with a permanent residence permit, and invited her to submit the requisite documents. However, by the date on which the Strasbourg Court delivered its judgment, the applicant had not supplied the necessary documents. Law : Procedure – In Chamber judgments the Court had found a violation of Article 8. The cases were referred to the Grand Chamber, in conformity with Article 43 of the Convention, at the request of the Latvian Government. Merits – The Court noted that neither of the applicants faced any real and imminent risk of being deported, as the expulsion decisions against them were no longer enforceable. Furthermore, the authorities had offered both applicants an opportunity to regularise their situation, in a letter sent to them in 2005 explaining the procedure they should follow. If they took the necessary steps the applicants could remain in Latvia legally and permanently, living normal social lives and enjoying a normal relationship with their respective children in accordance with Article 8 of the Convention. In spite of that express invitation from the Latvian authorities, the applicants had not yet followed the recommended procedure or made any attempt, however small, to contact the authorities and seek a solution in the event of difficulties. That being so, the Court noted that the situation the applicants complained of had ceased to exist. It was true that, particularly after their final appeals on points of law against the expulsion orders were dismissed, the applicants had experienced a long period of insecurity and legal uncertainty in Latvia. In Mrs   Kaftailova’s case, however, the authorities had made no attempt to enforce the expulsion order, so she had been able to remain in Latvia the whole time. Mrs Shevanova, on the other hand, had carried out certain fraudulent formalities with the aid of her two passports. As a Russian citizen she could have regularised her stay in Latvia by applying for a residence permit, but had not done so. On the contrary, instead of taking that legal course she had decided to adopt a manifestly fraudulent attitude. That being so, the hardship she complained of was largely the result of her own conduct. Consequently, the Court considered that the regularisation arrangements proposed to the applicants by the Latvian authorities constituted an adequate and sufficient remedy for their complaints under Article 8 of the Convention. The matters giving rise to this complaint could therefore now be considered to be “resolved” within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b). As no particular reason relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention required the Court to continue its examination of the applications, the Court decided to strike them out of its list of cases.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes