KOZLOV A OSTATNÍ proti Rusku

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 33204/18
Igor Nikolayevich KOZLOV and Others against Russia
and 8 other applications

(see appended table)

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 8 March 2022 as a Committee composed of:

Darian Pavli, President,
Peeter Roosma,
Mikhail Lobov, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications against Russia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated therein;

the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning allocation or transfer to a remote penal facility to the Russian Government (“the Government”) initially represented by Mr M. Galperin, former Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and later by his successor in that office Mr M. Vinogradov;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The applicants are prisoners serving prison sentences of various terms, including life sentences, and their family members. The relevant details pertaining to each application are set out in the table below.

2. The applicants complain of the allocation or transfer to a remote penal facility irrespective of family life considerations. Some of the applicants (see the appended table) also argue that they do not have an effective domestic remedy at the national level to complain about such allocation or transfer.

3. On 28 October 2021 the Government submitted information about the amendments to the Russian Code of Execution of Criminal Sentences (the “CES”) and asked to treat the new legislative provisions as introducing a new remedy in respect of the applicants’ complaints. They asked the Court to declare the complaints under Article 8 of the Convention inadmissible for the applicants’ failure to exhaust an effective domestic remedy in respect of their grievances. Some of the applicants submitted comments, questioning the effectiveness of the newly introduced remedy.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

4. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

5. The Court reiterates that in its recent decision of Dadusenko and Others v. Russia ((dec.), no. 36027/19 and 3 others, 7 September 2021), it has accepted that the CES as amended on 1 April 2020 (effective as of 29 September 2020) provided for an effective remedy for the complaints about the breaches of Article 8 of the Convention, as regards allocation or transfer of prisoners to a remote penal facility irrespective of family life considerations, and, having dismissed those complaints for the applicants’ failure to exhaust a new remedy, it has declared that it will apply that approach to all similar applications pending before the Court (ibid., §§ 25‑34). The Court has already adopted similar approach in cases in which a contracting State had introduced a special remedy, notably following the adoption of a leading judgment identifying a large-scale problem, and declared inadmissible repetitive applications once a remedy capable of remedying a structural problem was put in place in the domestic legal order (see ibid., § 24 ; Nagovitsyn and Nalgiyev v. Russia (dec.), nos. 27451/09 and 60650/09, 23 September 2010, and Tekin and Baysal v. Turkey (dec.), nos. 40192/10 and 8051/12, §§ 25-28, 4 December 2018, with the references therein).

6. It also reiterates, relying on the decision taken by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in respect of an application for transfer lodged by a person serving a life sentence, that the relevant provisions of the CES concerning the allocation of prisoners to post-conviction detention facilities provide for a possibility for prisoners serving a life sentence to apply for a transfer to another penal facility in order to maintain their family ties (ibid., § 28, and see also Tamamshev and Others v. Russia (dec.) [Committee], nos. 57368/19 and 59831/19, §§ 22-23, 7 September 2021).

7. In the present applications, having examined all the material before it, the Court has not found any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion on the admissibility of these complaints. It therefore considers that, in so far as the applicants have lodged prima facie well‑founded complaints, the amended CES affords them an opportunity to obtain adequate redress through the judicial procedure. Accordingly, the applicants should exhaust this remedy before their complaints can be examined by the Court. It follows that these complaints under Article 8 of the Convention should be declared inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

8. The Court has found above that the applicants have an effective remedy at their disposal which they have been required to use for the purpose of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. Accordingly, their complaints under Article 13 of the Convention must be rejected as being manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 28 July 2022.

Olga Chernishova Darian Pavli
Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of applications raising complaints under Article 8 § 1 of the Convention

(allocation or transfer to a remote penal facility irrespective of family life considerations)