CEDH · PRESS;GCJUDGMENTS;ENG — 7 décembre 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 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .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 } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   889 7.12.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENTS SHEVANOVA v. LATVIA KAFTAILOVA v. LATVIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Grand Chamber judgments [1] in the cases of Shevanova v. Latvia (application no. 58822/00) and Kaftailova v.   Latvia (no. 59643/00).   The Court held unanimously that the matters giving rise to these two cases had been resolved and decided to strike the applications out of its list of cases.   Under Rule 43 § 4 of its Rules of Court, the Court awarded 1,000   euros (EUR) to Mrs   Shevanova and EUR 886 to Mrs Kaftailova, for costs and expenses. (The judgments are available in English and French.)   1.     Principal facts   In these two cases the applicants, who had been living in Latvia for several years in one case and several decades in the other, became stateless following the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Latvian authorities refused to regularise their stay and made orders for their deportation which, the applicants maintained, infringed their right to respect for their private and family life.   Shevanova Nina Shevanova is a Russian national who was born in 1948 and lives in Riga.   In 1970, when she was 22, the applicant settled in Latvia for professional 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 received a new passport; she found the lost passport in 1989 but failed to return it to the relevant authorities.   In 1991 the Soviet Union broke up and Mrs Shevanova found herself with no nationality. She was registered in Latvia on the list of residents as a permanent resident, and her son was granted the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” of Latvia.   In 1994 a Latvian bridge-building company offered the applicant a job as a crane operator in Dagestan and Ingushetia, regions of the Caucasus bordering on Chechnya and belonging to the Russian Federation. 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 nationality and a formal registration of residence in Russia before signing the employment contract. The applicant then had a false stamp entered in her first Soviet passport (which had been found but not disclosed to the authorities), attesting that her registration in Latvia had been cancelled. She was registered in Russia at her brother’s address, and was granted Russian nationality.   In March 1998 the applicant applied to the Nationality and Migration Directorate at the Latvian Ministry of the Interior ( Iekšlietu ministrijas Pilsonības un migrācijas lietu pārvalde , “the Directorate”) for a passport based on the status of “permanently resident non ‑ citizen”. The Directorate subsequently discovered that she had registered a second residence in Russia and had completed certain formalities on the basis of the old passport which had been mislaid and found again. It decided on 9 April 1998 to remove the applicant’s name from the register of residents and issued a deportation order against her, together with a five-year exclusion order.   None of the administrative and judicial appeals lodged by the applicant with a view to having the deportation order overturned was successful. In February 2001 Mrs Shevanova was arrested and placed in a detention centre for illegal immigrants pending her deportation. Following her admission to hospital with high blood pressure, the Directorate suspended enforcement of the forcible expulsion decision against her and the applicant, who was released, continued to reside in Latvia unlawfully.   After the European Court of Human Rights had declared this application admissible, the Latvian authorities offered in February 2005 to regularise the applicant’s situation by issuing her with a permanent residence permit, and invited her to file the necessary documents to that end. However, it appeared from the case file that to date the applicant had not submitted the necessary papers.   Kaftailova The applicant, Natella Kaftailova, is of Georgian origin. She was born in 1958 and lives in Riga (Latvia). She had Soviet nationality until 1991 and currently has no nationality.   In 1982 the applicant, who was then resident in Russia, married a Soviet civil servant employed by the Ministry of the Interior of the USSR. The couple had a daughter in 1984 and settled in Latvia.   In July 1988 the applicant’s husband exchanged the dwelling which he had been renting in Kazan (Russia) against the right to rent a State-owned flat in Riga, and he and his family moved in straight away. In March 1990 the applicant, who had been registered until then in Volzhsk (Russia), cancelled her official residence registration; the following month her husband registered her, without her knowledge or consent, as resident at their family’s new address in Riga, and also registered himself at that address. Having discovered that her name had been entered in the register in question, the applicant had it removed on 15 June 1990. The couple divorced in October 1990.   In 1991 the Soviet Union broke up and Mrs Kaftailova found herself with no nationality.   In February 1993 the applicant was granted the right to rent a room obtained by her ex ‑ husband in 1987, which was located in a “duty residence”, and asked the Department of Nationality and Migration Affairs at the Latvian Ministry of the Interior ( Iekšlietu ministrijas Pilsonības un imigrācijas departaments, “the Department”) to enter her name on the register of residents ( Iedzīvotāju reģistrs ) as a permanent resident of Latvia. In her request, however, she indicated the address at which her ex-husband had unlawfully registered her, and not the address in Riga at which she then lived.   Initially the Department granted her request. In July 1993, however, it cancelled the applicant’s registration on the ground that the stamp in her passport was false. On 15   February 1994 the Department removed the applicant from the register of residents, cancelled her personal identification code and overturned the judgment granting her the right to rent the room in which she lived.   On 9 January 1995 the Department served a deportation order on the applicant, ordering her to leave Latvia with her daughter. The Department had noted that on 1 July 1992, the critical date laid down by the Non-Citizens Act, the applicant had not been officially registered as having any permanent residence in Latvia. In those circumstances, she ought to have applied for a residence permit within one month of the Act entering into force, failing which she would be subject to a deportation order; however, the applicant had not done so.   None of the administrative and judicial appeals lodged by the applicant with a view to having her situation regularised was successful.   After the Court had declared this application admissible, the Latvian authorities offered in January 2005 to regularise the applicant’s situation by issuing her with a permanent residence permit, and invited her to file the necessary documents to that end. However, it appeared from the case file that the applicant had not submitted the necessary papers by the date of the Court’s judgment.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 28 June 2000 in the case of Shevanova and on 10 April 2000 in the case of Kaftailova .   In a judgment of 15 June 2006 the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention (right to respect for private and family life) in the case of Shevanova , and on 22 June 2006 that there had been a violation of Article 8 in the case of Kaftailova .   The cases were referred to the Grand Chamber under Article 43 [2] (referral to the Grand Chamber) at the request of the Latvian Government.   Judgment was given by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:   Jean-Paul Costa (French), President , Nicolas Bratza (British), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenian), Peer Lorenzen (Danish), Karel Jungwiert (Czech), Kristaq Traja (Albanian), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan) Lech Garlicki (Polish), Javier Borrego Borrego (Spanish), Alvina Gyulumyan (Armenian), Egbert Myjer (Dutch), David Thór Björgvinsson (Icelandic), Ján Šikuta (Slovak), Mark Villiger (Swiss) [3] , Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre (Monegasque), Giorgio Malinverni (Swiss), judges , Jautrite Briede (Latvian) , ad hoc judge , and also Michael O’Boyle , Deputy Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [4]   Complaints   Shevanova The applicant alleged, in particular, that the decision to deport her from Latvia amounted to a violation of her right to respect for her private and family life, guaranteed by Article 8.   Kaftailova The applicant alleged, in particular, that the Latvian authorities’ refusal to regularise her situation constituted a violation of her right to respect for her private and family life, guaranteed by Article 8.   Decision of the Court   Article 8   The Court noted that, as matters stood, neither applicant faced a real and imminent risk of deportation, as the expulsion decisions could no longer be enforced. It further noted that the authorities had offered to regularise the situation of both applicants; they had each received a letter to that effect in 2005 which outlined the procedure to be followed. If they were to take the necessary action the applicants would be able to remain in Latvia legally and permanently, and thus lead a normal social life and maintain their relationships with their respective children.   The Court observed that neither applicant had yet taken the steps indicated by the Directorate, despite being expressly invited to do so. To date, the applicants had made no attempt, however slight, to get in touch with the authorities and try to find a solution to any difficulties that might arise.   In the circumstances, the Court found that the material facts complained of by the applicants had ceased to exist. It also considered that the regularisation arrangements proposed to the applicants by the Latvian authorities had constituted an adequate and sufficient remedy for their complaints under Article 8.   Accordingly, the Court considered that the matters giving rise to the present applications could be considered to be “resolved” within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b). Since no particular reason relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention required it to continue its examination of the applications, the Court decided to strike them out of its list of cases.   ***   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) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 91)   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] Grand Chamber judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention). [2] 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. [3] Judge elected in respect of Liechtenstein. [4] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.