CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 11 janvier 2007

.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 } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .s1C7BEF1E { margin-left:28.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .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 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   20 11.1.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT KUZNETSOV AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Kuznetsov and Others v. Russia (application no. 184/02).   The Court held unanimously that there had been: a violation of Article 9 (freedom of religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights; a violation of Article 6 (right to a fair hearing) of the Convention.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded Mr Kuznetsov, on behalf of all the applicants, 30,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 60,544 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants are Konstantin Nikanorovich Kuznetsov and 102 other Russian nationals who live in the town of Chelyabinsk (Russia). They are all Jehovah’s Witnesses.   On 6 February 1999 a lease was signed which allowed the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses to which the applicants belonged to rent the auditorium of a vocational training college in Chelyabinsk, in order to hold religious meetings.   On Sunday, 16 April 2000, in accordance with the lease agreement, Jehovah’s Witnesses were using the college facilities to hold a meeting for predominantly hearing-impaired Jehovah’s Witnesses to study the Bible and join in public worship. Many of the participants were elderly and also had impaired vision. The meeting was open to the public.   The applicants claimed that their meeting was disrupted by the chairwoman of the Regional Human Rights Commission, accompanied by two senior police officers, who called for the meeting to be stopped. Mr Kuznetsov submitted that, given the intimidating behaviour of the Commissioner and the police, he thought it best to comply.   The following day the Jehovah’s Witnesses group was given notice of the termination of its lease agreement with the college “because of certain irregularities committed by the college administration at the time of its signing”.   The applicants unsuccessfully requested a criminal investigation into the actions of the Commissioner and the police officers. They also filed a civil complaint with Sovietskiy District Court of Chelyabinsk, which was dismissed on the ground that the applicants had failed to show a causal link between the Commissioner’s arrival and the premature termination of their meeting.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 17 December 2001. A hearing on admissibility and the merits took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 9 September 2004, following which the application was declared partly admissible.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Christos Rozakis (Greek), President , Peer Lorenzen (Danish), Snejana Botoucharova (Bulgarian), Anatoli Kovler (Russian), Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian), Elisabeth Steiner (Austrian), Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijani), judges , and also Søren Nielsen , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaint   The applicants complained that they had been prevented from holding a religious meeting following undue interference on the part of the authorities and that they were victims of discrimination on account of their religious beliefs. They further complained that they had been denied a fair hearing and an effective remedy for their grievances. They relied on Articles 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 14.   Decision of the Court   Article 9   The Court found it established that the order to terminate the meeting had emanated from the Commissioner, whereas the applicant Mr Kuznetsov merely relayed it to the hearing-impaired audience, with whom the police officer could not communicate directly. That order amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of religion.   The Court further found that the acts by the Commissioner and by the police had not been in accordance with the law.   The Court rejected the Government’s claim that the applicants lacked the appropriate documents for the religious meeting because the domestic law did not require any such documents. It likewise did not accept the Government’s claim that the Commissioner had come to the meeting to investigate a complaint about the unauthorised presence of children at a religious event, as that claim was not supported by any evidence.   The Court observed that the Government did not submit any documents relating to the official powers of the Commissioner and that no such documents were produced in the domestic proceedings. There were, however, strong and concordant indications that she acted without any legal basis and in a personal capacity. The involvement of two senior police officers gave her intervention a spurious authority. However, the police officers were not formally subordinate to her and she had no authority to give them orders, such as the one she gave to have the meeting dispersed. There was no ongoing inquiry of any kind, nor had there been any complaint about disturbance of public order or any other indication of an offence warranting police involvement. Therefore the legal basis for breaking up a religious event conducted on the premises lawfully rented for that purpose was conspicuously lacking. Against that background the Court found that the interference was not “prescribed by law”, and that the Commissioner did not act in good faith and that she had breached a State official's duty of neutrality and impartiality vis-à-vis the applicants' religious congregation.   The Court therefore found that there has been a violation of Article 9. It did not consider it necessary to examine the same events from the standpoint of Articles 8, 10 or 11.   Article 6 The Court was struck by the inconsistent approach of the Russian courts, on the one hand finding it established that the Commissioner and her aides had come to the applicants' religious meeting and that it had been terminated ahead of time, and on the other hand refusing to see a link between those two elements without furnishing an alternative explanation for the early termination of the meeting. Their findings of fact appeared to suggest that the Commissioner's arrival and the applicants' decision to interrupt their religious service had simply happened to coincide. That approach permitted the domestic courts to avoid addressing the applicants' main complaint, namely that neither the Commissioner nor the police officers had had any legal basis for interfering with the conduct of the applicants' religious event. The crux of the applicants' grievances – a violation of their right to freedom of religion – was thus left outside the scope of review by the domestic courts which declined to undertake an examination of the merits of their complaint.   The Court found that the domestic courts failed in their duty to state the reasons on which their decisions were based and to demonstrate that the parties had been heard in a fair and equitable manner. It therefore found that there had been a violation of Article 6.   Articles 13 and 14 The Court held that no separate examination under Articles 13 and 14 was necessary       ***   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.