PIVKINA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA

• ECLI: ECLI:CE:ECHR:2023:0606DEC000213423
• Counsel: ZYRYANOVA M. S. ; SHARAPOV I. I. ; GERASIMOV D. G. ; MIKHAYLOVA O. O. ; SELEZNEV S. A.
• Date: 06 June 2023
• Application Number: 2134/23;4556/23;12899/23;2156/23;7800/23;11065/23;13850/23
• Court: Third Section (European Court of Human Rights)
• Respondent State: Rusia
• Applied Rules: 3;5;5-3;6;6-1;8;8-1;10;10-1;11;11-1;P7-2;35;35-3-a;5-1;58

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 2134/23
Yelena Ivanovna PIVKINA against Russia
and 6 other applications
(see the list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 6 June 2023 as a Chamber composed of:

Pere Pastor Vilanova, President,
Jolien Schukking,
Yonko Grozev,
Darian Pavli,
Peeter Roosma,
Ioannis Ktistakis,
Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the dates indicated in the appended table,

Having regard to the decision of the President of the Section to appoint one of the sitting judges of the Court to act as an ad hoc judge, applying by analogy Rule 29 § 2 of the Rules of the Court (see, for a similar situation and an explanation of the background, Kutayev v. Russia, no. 17912/15, §§ 5-8, 24 January 2023),

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

INTRODUCTION

1. The decision concerns the limits of the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to cases against the Russian Federation.

THE FACTS

1. CESSATION OF RUSSIA’S MEMBERSHIP OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

2. On 16 March 2022 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, in the context of a procedure launched under Article 8 of the Statute of the Council of Europe, adopted Resolution CM/Res(2022)2, by which the Russian Federation ceased to be a member of the Council of Europe as from 16 March 2022.

3. On 22 March 2022 the Court, sitting in a plenary session in accordance with Rule 20 § 1 of the Rules of Court, adopted the “Resolution of the European Court of Human Rights on the consequences of the cessation of membership of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe in light of Article 58 of the European Convention on Human Rights”, which declared as follows:

“1. The Russian Federation ceases to be a High Contracting Party to the Convention on 16 September 2022.

2. The Court remains competent to deal with applications directed against the Russian Federation in relation to acts or omissions capable of constituting a violation of the Convention provided that they occurred until 16 September 2022.”

2. CIRCUMSTANCES OF INDIVIDUAL APPLICATIONS

4. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

1. Ms Pivkina (application no. 2134/23)

5. On 6 March, 2 and 29 April 2022 Ms Pivkina took part in mass protests against Russia’s war in Ukraine. Each time the police detained her during the event and took her to a police station for the preparation of an offence report. She spent five hours, seven hours, and fifteen hours, respectively at the police station.

6. On 15 April 2022 the Lefortovskiy District Court in Moscow fined her 10,000 Russian roubles (RUB) for breaching the procedure for holding a public event, an offence under Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences (CAO); on 6 April 2022 the Kuzminskiy District Court fined her RUB 20,000 on the same charge, and on 30 April 2022 the Tverskoy District Court gave her a fifteen-day custodial sentence on the charge of minor disorderly acts under Article 19.3 of the CAO.

7. In her grounds of appeal, Ms Pivkina complained in particular that her arrest during the protests and her escorting to the police station had been unnecessary and had exceeded the statutory three-hour time-limit. She further complained that the proceedings were conducted in the absence of a prosecutor and that the trial court refused to take evidence from the arresting police officers. She also complained that the Tverskoy District Court’s custodial sentence had been immediately enforced, without giving her time to make an appeal. On 17 August (the first set of proceedings) and 29 September 2022 (the second and third sets of proceedings) the Moscow City Court dismissed her appeals.

2. Mr Korolev (application no. 2156/23)

8. In April 2022 Mr Korolev, a civil society activist, shared his views on the war in Ukraine through his social media account. Specifically, he wrote that Donetsk had been fired at from Russian-controlled territory and that “people who refused to believe that the massacres in Bucha and Borodyanka had been perpetrated by the Russian military displayed a remarkable degree of naiveté”.

9. On 11 July 2022 an investigator from the Investigative Committee in St Petersburg opened a...