CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 21 décembre 2006

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .sC90828B6 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   812 21.12.2006   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT BARTIK v. RUSSIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Bartik v. Russia (application no. 55565/00).   The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 3,000   euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,600 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Arkadiy Mikhaylovich Bartik, is a Russian national who was born in 1954 and at the relevant time lived in the Moscow region. He now lives in the United States of America.   In 1977 the applicant started working for a State-owned construction and design company, Raduga (GMKB Raduga), which developed rocket and space devices.   While working for Raduga, the applicant signed various undertakings stipulating that he could not disclose classified information. His contract of 16 May 1989 also included the statement: “I have been informed of the prohibition on travel abroad, except as permitted by relevant laws and regulations...”. However, the last contract he signed, on 31 January 1994, did not include any statement about prohibitions on foreign travel.     On 20 August 1996 the applicant resigned, leaving all classified documents which had been in his possession with Raduga.   In early 1997 the applicant's father, who lived in Germany, fell ill. Wishing to visit his father, the applicant applied to the Passports and Visas Service of the Department of the Interior of Dubna for a travel passport (zagranichnyi pasport). On 17 March 1997 the Passports and Visas Service refused the applicant's request until 2001, pursuant to a recommendation of his former employer.   The applicant unsuccessfully appealed to Moscow City Court, which, on 24 September 1999, found that the applicant had signed undertakings not to disclose State secrets and that the undertaking he had signed in 1989 contained a clause restricting his right to leave the country. Having examined a report on the applicant's knowledge of State secrets, the court found that the applicant had in the past used “workbooks that contained extracts from top-secret documents”. The court concluded that the restriction on the applicant's right to leave Russia until 14 August 2001 was therefore lawful and justified. That decision was upheld on appeal.   On 25 October 2001 the applicant was issued with a travel passport and subsequently moved to the United States of America.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 23 February 2000 and declared partly admissible on 16 September 2004.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Christos Rozakis (Greek), President , Loukis Loucaides (Cypriot), Françoise Tulkens (Belgian), Nina Vajić (Croatian), Anatoli Kovler (Russian), Elisabeth Steiner (Austrian), Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijani), judges , and also Søren Nielsen , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaint   Relying on Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention, the applicant complained of the Russian authorities’ refusal to issue him with a passport to travel abroad.   Decision of the Court   Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 The Court found that the applicant's right to leave his own country was restricted in a manner amounting to an interference within the meaning of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 and that the restriction was imposed in accordance with the law and pursued a legitimate aim, the protection of national security.   As to whether the restriction was “necessary in a democratic society”, the Court noted that the applicant surrendered all classified material to his employer on termination of his contract in 1996, before he applied for the travel passport. The purpose of the applicant’s planned trip abroad had been purely private and not related to his previous work, as he had intended to visit his ailing father.   However, the Russian law on international travel by people with knowledge of State secrets imposed an unqualified restriction on their right to leave Russia, whatever the purpose or duration of their visit. Accordingly, the scope of review by the domestic authorities was limited to an examination of whether the information to which the applicant had once had access was still sensitive. They did not consider whether the restriction on the applicant's right to travel abroad for private purposes was still necessary or whether a less restrictive measure could have been applied.   The Court noted that the Government did not indicate how the unqualified restriction on the applicant's ability to travel abroad had served the interests of national security. It considered that the link between the restriction in its current form, and the protective function that had been historically assigned to it, was missing. At the time the restriction was conceived, the State was able to control transmission of information to the outside world, using a combination of restrictions on outgoing and incoming correspondence, prohibition on international travel and emigration and a ban on unsupervised contacts with foreigners within the country. However, once the ban on personal contacts with foreigners was removed and correspondence was no longer subject to censorship, the need to impose restrictions on international travel for private purposes by people knowing “State secrets” became less obvious. In those circumstances, in so far as the ban on international travel for private reasons purported to prevent the applicant from communicating information to foreign nationals, and in a contemporary democratic society, such a restriction failed to achieve the protective function previously assigned to it.   The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in its Opinion on Russia's request for membership of the Council of Europe, indicated that the repeal of the restriction on international travel for private purposes was regarded as a necessary condition for membership of the Council of Europe, which required Member States to adhere to the principles of individual freedom, political liberty and the rule of law. The express mention in the Parliamentary Assembly's Opinion on Russia's accession request of Russia's undertaking to end that restriction suggested that the Assembly did not consider it to be compatible with membership of the Council of Europe. Furthermore, the Court observed that nearly all Member States had never had a comparable restriction in their legislation, whereas many others abolished it during the process of democratic reforms [3] . However, Russia's undertaking to abolish that restriction had not been implemented and the relevant provisions of domestic law remained in force.   Finally, the Court observed that the restriction on the applicant's right to leave his country was imposed for a considerable period of time, for five years following the termination of his employment, notwithstanding the fact that that restriction was not explicitly mentioned in the 1994 undertaking. The impact of that measure had to have been particularly heavy for the applicant because he had not been able to travel abroad since the beginning of his employment in 1977, a total of 24 years.   The Court concluded that the restriction on the applicant's right to leave his own country was not “necessary in a democratic society” and that there had, therefore, been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.   [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. [3] Situation in other European States The laws of the 10 founding members of the Council of Europe (Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have not restricted the right of their nationals to go abroad for private purposes since the Organisation was set up in 1949.   The Schengen Agreement, which was originally signed on 14 June 1985 by five States and has to date been implemented by 15 States, has removed border posts and checks in much of Western Europe and abolished any outstanding restrictions on international travel.   Many other States which have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, including, in particular, the former Socialist countries, repealed restrictions on international travel by people with knowledge of “State secrets” – a common legacy of the Socialist regime – during the process of democratic transition (for example, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland). At present, certain restrictions, on people who were aware of “State secrets” but wish to go abroad, have endured in only a few States that were once part of the Soviet Union. Of these, two Ratifying States (Armenia and Ukraine) provide for temporary restrictions on permanent emigration – but not on international travel for private purposes – by people who had access to “State secrets” and one State (Azerbaijan) also restricts private international travel by such individuals.