TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): For these purposes, I will kindly draw the Court's attention to the only report of the Council of Europe Committee Against Torture, referred as CPT, of the Russian Federation that is public.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies know that very few states refuse the publication of the CPT reports.
AP1 (Applicant): The Respondent State is one of those few.
AP1 (Applicant): Despite the requests made in the course of the witness hearings to disclose the CPT reports, the Respondent State has failed to share them with the Court.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the only public report that dates 2001 gives sufficient information about the detention conditions in the Russian Federation.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the CPT, the police isolators were not equipped with facilities suitable for overnight stays.
AP1 (Applicant): The cells seen by the delegation were totally unacceptable for extended periods of custody, dark, poorly ventilated, dirty, and usually devoid of any equipment except a bench.
AP1 (Applicant): Persons held overnight were not provided with mattresses or blankets.
AP1 (Applicant): Further, there was no provision for supplying detainees with food and drinking water, and access to a toilet was problematic.
AP1 (Applicant): The CPT describes the situation as equally alarming in the detention centers for foreign nationals in Moscow, where people were kept in overcrowded cells without access to basic amenities and the possibilities for contact with the outside world.
AP1 (Applicant): The annual Human Rights Report of the United States State Department, published in 2008, is instructive as it describes the detention conditions as harsh and frequently life-threatening.
AP1 (Applicant): Specifically in relation to ethnic Georgians in 2006, the special reporter of the UN General Assembly finds that the Georgian nationals were inter alia, deprived sufficient nutrition and medical aid while awaiting expulsion.
AP1 (Applicant): A Russian NGO memorial concurs with all the previous reports by saying that the detention centers for foreign nationals are not originally designed for long-term detention, but are reception centers, temporary detention, and even sobering up stations.
AP1 (Applicant): In 2006, Svetlana Ganushkina, a well-known Russian human rights activist, expressed her concern that the centers for temporary detention, centers of foreigners where foreigners face expulsion, are overfilled with meager food, cramped surroundings, lack of necessary sanitary conditions, and medical assistance, inaccessible legal help.
AP1 (Applicant): By international standards, Svetlana Ganushkina concludes, such conditions may be compared to the use of torture against detainees.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgian consul to the Russian Federation, Mr. Bataridze, who testified before
AP1 (Applicant): this court, stated that he visited various detention centers in various parts of the Russian Federation, and the conditions there were very harsh.
AP1 (Applicant): Cells were overcrowded, hygiene conditions were deplorable, it was cold and humid.
AP1 (Applicant): There were not enough beds and mattresses in the cells.
AP1 (Applicant): According to him, conditions were exceptionally difficult in the detention center of St. Petersburg.
AP1 (Applicant): This is a detention facility where Georgian national, Tengiz Togonidze, was detained.
AP1 (Applicant): The conditions there were so appalling that even the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation agreed that it should have been closed quickly.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. Togonidze died before the deportation due to the unbearable detention
AP1 (Applicant): conditions and the absence of appropriate medical care.
AP1 (Applicant): Unfortunately, Mr. Togonidze is not the only Georgian who died in detention.
AP1 (Applicant): Two other Georgians shared the tragic fate, and the one suffered a stroke as a result of poor detention conditions.
AP1 (Applicant): The conditions were equally harsh in the buses that were used for transporting Georgians from the detention centers in different regions to Moscow airport for the deportation.
AP1 (Applicant): After days and sometimes weeks spent in inhuman conditions, the detainees had to stay in the buses without fresh air for hours.
AP1 (Applicant): They had to pay for basic services like using the toilet, smoking a cigarette, and even breathing the fresh air.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgian witnesses confirmed that they had to pay 300 rubles for toilet, though most of them had no money after the suffering they went through.
AP1 (Applicant): After days and sometimes weeks of detention and humiliation, Georgian nationals were deported by a cargo plane unsuitable for transporting people.
AP1 (Applicant): The witnesses told the court at the witness hearing that the wooden benches in the plane were not enough for the passengers, and they had either to sit on their small backs or to stand during three hours flight.
AP1 (Applicant): The toilet in the plane was moving around until they fixed it with the backs.
AP1 (Applicant): From the very moment of the arrest, Georgian nationals were humiliated by the officials of the Respondent State.
AP1 (Applicant): The witnesses recall stories that clearly show that Georgians were put in particularly bad conditions due to their origin.
AP1 (Applicant): Witness Irina Chokhely said to the court that she was told to drink the water from the toilet and leave the country because she was Georgian.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgians had no possibility to challenge the deplorable conditions of detention.
AP1 (Applicant): The court is aware from the judgment of Ananiyev versus Russian Federation that the Russian legal system does not dispose of an effective remedy that could be used to prevent the alleged violation or its continuation and provide the applicant with adequate and sufficient redress in connection with the complaints about inadequate conditions of detention.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the all above mentioned, the applicant strongly believes that the severe overcrowding in the cells, inadequacy of the sleeping arrangements, lack of sanitation and privacy, the fact that the detainees lived, slept and used the toilet in a single room, the incidences of deaths and serious illnesses among the detainees, as well as the conditions in the buses and the use of the cargo plane for the expulsion of Georgians as a whole is a clear indication that the Russian Federation fell short of its obligations under Article 3 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, due to the ethnically motivated ill-treatment and the absence of legal remedies against poor detention conditions, the applicant submits that there is a violation of Article 3 separately and in conjunction with Article 14 and 13 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, the applicant states further contests that the Russian Federation breached Article 5, paragraph 1, due to arbitrary detention of ethnic Georgians and Article 5, paragraph 4, due to the denial of opportunity to challenge the legality of their arrest and detention.
AP1 (Applicant): The arrest of Georgians with a view to their expulsion took the form of mass operation, including spot checks in churches, markets and stores, and the spot checks in churches, markets and streets, as well as in homes and educational institutions and places of work through ethnic profiling.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgians were arrested and detained due to their ethnicity, rather than due to their immigration status.
AP1 (Applicant): Witness Mr. Toalavadze testified before the Court that they did not even look at
AP1 (Applicant): the documents.
AP1 (Applicant): They just knew I was Georgian right away.
AP1 (Applicant): We were told all the time, don't say anything, don't do anything, you are Georgians, don't ask why you are being deported to Georgia.
AP1 (Applicant): When you get back to Georgia, you can ask your president.
AP1 (Applicant): The witness statements on ethnically motivated detention and expulsion are confirmed by independent sources.
AP1 (Applicant): Human Rights Watch is particularly interesting in this regard.
AP1 (Applicant): The 2007 report, Single Out, says police targeted individuals whom they suspected were Georgian on the basis of their appearance, stopped them on the street in order to check the validity of their passports or other documents, and subsequently detained them, often irrespective of the legality of their documents.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, I have shown earlier in my presentation dealing with administrative practice and the exhaustion of domestic remedies that there were no remedies available to ethnic Georgians to challenge the detention.
AP1 (Applicant): Courts that should have examined the legality of detention for expulsion just rubber-stamped the decisions.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgians became victims of collective trials, and they were discouraged to appeal the decisions as there were no prospects of success.
AP1 (Applicant): I will further elaborate on the manner the so-called trials were conducted when I move to the applicant's arguments on Article 4 of Protocol 4.
AP1 (Applicant): Based on the detailed information and evidence available in the case file, we respectfully request the Court to find that the arrest of Georgians was arbitrary, ethnically motivated, and discriminatory.
AP1 (Applicant): The detained Georgians had no opportunity to effectively challenge their detention.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the Respondent's State shall be found in breach of Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 4 separately and in conjunction with Article 13 and 14 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Applicant's State claims that in the course of the arrest, detention, and expulsion of ethnic Georgians, the Respondent's State violated Article 8 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): It is not challenged by the Respondent that the police sent requests to schools asking for the information about ethnic Georgian pupils and their parents, their home addresses, and other personal data.
AP1 (Applicant): According to Human Rights Watch, pupils at schools were questioned in order to establish their exact home address, which the police officers and migration authorities then visited and apprehended their parents.
AP1 (Applicant): The disclosure of information by schools and universities as to the background and address of pupils and students was not prescribed by the domestic law and, as a consequence, was a violation of Article 8.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, Article 8 is implicated in the cases of unlawful family separation.
AP1 (Applicant): At least on six occasions, parents were expelled while their minor children were left behind.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the Court should find a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Applicants also submit that the arrest and detention of Georgians in public places, as well as the manner they were expelled from the Respondent's State, resulted in them being forced to abandon their property.
AP1 (Applicant): There was no opportunity to make any arrangements to look after the property that the Georgian citizens were obliged to leave behind.
AP1 (Applicant): In the wake of the massive operations against Georgian businesses and Georgian workers, many Georgians across Russia felt compelled to shut down their market stalls and businesses out of fear of being raided and expelled from the country.
AP1 (Applicant): More detailed facts on property-related claims are provided in our original application.
AP1 (Applicant): The accumulation of those facts support that the violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the Convention took place.
AP1 (Applicant): It is an established fact that the police officers and migration authorities visited the schools and universities.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgian students at various universities were detained at lectures and in auditoriums, searched and taken to police stations without being charged in any concrete illegal activity.
AP1 (Applicant): We submit that the right to education of many Georgians was violated by the Respondent's State.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, the applicant's state submits that the Respondent has collectively expelled ethnic Georgians from the territory of the Russian Federation and denied them their right to have the cases reviewed.
AP1 (Applicant): The detainees were collectively brought to a judge.
AP1 (Applicant): The so-called trials lasted for a few minutes without the possibility to have legal counsel and an interpreter.
AP1 (Applicant): Some of the detainees were not even formally brought to a judge.
AP1 (Applicant): Witness Mikhail Zurashvili told this court that the officers kept him and many other Georgians in buses for some time.
AP1 (Applicant): Then they were given the court's decisions without entering the court building, let alone seeing a judge personally.
AP1 (Applicant): They were forced to sign the decision without having the possibility to read it.
AP1 (Applicant): The detained Georgians were discouraged by the police, the officers in the detention centers, and even by the judges not to appeal the decisions by saying inter alia that they had to be happy for still being alive.
AP1 (Applicant): Another witness, Koba Gabunia, whose court hearing lasted no more than five minutes, was told by a judge that there was no point in appealing since there was an order from the above.
AP1 (Applicant): Tengiz Milashvili said to the court, when we got to the place, they said, sign here.
AP1 (Applicant): How could I read it?
AP1 (Applicant): They were saying, faster, faster.
AP1 (Applicant): They did not give us the time to read them.
AP1 (Applicant): And when we left the building, they told us that it was a court.
AP1 (Applicant): I did not know it was a court.
AP1 (Applicant): I mean, there was some young lady there, and that was it.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, I can go with a long list of witness statements, confirming the absence of any meaningful court hearing of the cases.
AP1 (Applicant): Though due to the time constraints, I would kindly refer to pages 69 and 70 of our written observations of November 30, 2011, where the relevant summaries of witness statements are provided.
AP1 (Applicant): Though I will once again allow myself to cite the Human Rights Watch, which says, while many expelled Georgians may technically have had a judicial decision ordering the expulsion, the manner in which those decisions were reached, some in-group trials, the lack of representation and capacity to mount a proper case against the expulsion, and the fact that many were effectively denied the right to appeal, points to Russia's failure to comply with its international obligations.
AP1 (Applicant): To conclude, it is apparent that the victims were not afforded a procedure with sufficient guarantees that demonstrated that the personal circumstances of each of them had been taken into consideration to any extent.
AP1 (Applicant): The witnesses have demonstrated that the courts were not willing to listen to their submissions as to why they should not have been expelled.
AP1 (Applicant): Judges used the same form to order the expulsion, inserting only their names and the dates, without dealing with any factual circumstances of the individual cases.
AP1 (Applicant): Some of the victims did not even have an opportunity to appear before the court, let alone appeal the court decision on expulsion.
AP1 (Applicant): The action taken by the Russian authorities constitutes a collective measure against a group of Georgian nationals, and, as a consequence, their expulsion should be regarded as a violation of Article 4, of Protocol 4, separately and in conjunction with Article 13 and 14 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, this Court reiterates in a number of cases, including in a more recent Bolat v. Russia, and the applicant state fully shares that the high-contracting
AP1 (Applicant): parties have a discretionary power to decide whether to expel an eligible person or to expel an alien present in their territory.
AP1 (Applicant): But this power must be exercised in such a way as not to infringe the rights under the Convention of the person concerned.
AP1 (Applicant): First and foremost, the applicant state submits that the Article 1 of Protocol 7 applies to the present case, and the Respondent's frequently invoked argument that the status of expelled Georgians is misleading.
AP1 (Applicant): It is true that some of those expelled did not technically meet the complex and often confusing requirements of the Russian migration legislation.
AP1 (Applicant): However, there is strong evidence supporting that many of those expelled were legally residing in the country.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, Article 1 of Protocol 7 is of relevance in the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the monitoring committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the issue of the great number of Georgians living in Russia illegally is linked to a structural problem of Russia's immigration policies.
AP1 (Applicant): In 2002, due to the adoption of the new law and maintaining the deficient administrative system, people who had been living in Russia for years suddenly became illegal migrants.
AP1 (Applicant): The PACE concludes that the time anti-Georgian campaign began in October, repressive mechanisms against foreign citizens had already been created in Russian legislation.
AP1 (Applicant): The UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, qualifies the situation as institutionalized discrimination provided by the legislation.
AP1 (Applicant): The UN Committee Against Torture recommended the Russian Federation in 2006 to clarify the violations of immigration rules, which may result in administrative expulsion and establish clear procedures to ensure they are implemented fairly.
AP1 (Applicant): Due to the well-recognized structural deficiencies of the migration system in the respondent state, the Georgian nationals were left without the safeguards of Article 1 of Protocol 7.
AP1 (Applicant): They were expelled without proper determination of the status by the domestic courts.
AP1 (Applicant): Many Georgians were expelled even before the appeal hearings were conducted.
AP1 (Applicant): There are numerous cases of the expulsion, them being stripped of their citizenship.
AP1 (Applicant): The factor of ethnic origin is a late motive of the present case, and it is supported both by the witness statements that I have referred to above, as well as by independent sources.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, we submit to the Court that there is a violation of Article 1 of Protocol 7 separately and in conjunction with Article 13 and 14 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Last but not least, I would like to elaborate on the applicability and violation of Article 18 of the Convention in the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, I deliberately kept the question of Article 18 at the end of my presentation, after all relevant facts and law are submitted.
AP1 (Applicant): It is clear that the respondent state has used its machinery in bad faith for the political retaliation against the government of Georgia.
AP1 (Applicant): The anti-Georgian rhetoric that reached its climax in the Russian political establishment after the arrest of four Russian spies in Georgia is a clear manifestation of the hidden agenda behind the mass expulsion of Georgians from the respondent state.
AP1 (Applicant): The statements made by high-ranking Russian officials varied from no need for Georgians in Russia to threatening with the use of military force.
AP1 (Applicant): These political statements were easily translated into the official orders and later into the implementing circulars and, most importantly, into the actions.
AP1 (Applicant): After the ethnic profiling and arrest in streets, marketplaces, places of work and residence, Georgians were deliberately sent to detention centers even when they were ready to leave the country voluntarily.
AP1 (Applicant): Miss Irina Chokheli told the courts that she was not allowed to leave the country.
AP1 (Applicant): I was told, no, you will be sent to Georgia as a prisoner, as a detainee.
AP1 (Applicant): It was a deliberate policy of putting Georgian nationals in grave suffering and thus retaliating against the government of Georgia.
AP1 (Applicant): Human Rights Watch unequivocally concluded in 2007 that the expulsion of Georgians in 2006 was an example of foreign policy tactics of Russia, not related to the migration control.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, there has been hardly more clear case of breach of Article 18 in the rich case law of this court.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, we strongly believe that this court should find the breach of Article 18 in conjunction with Article 5, paragraph 1 of the convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, with your permission, I will now conclude with the applicant state's prayers for relief.
AP1 (Applicant): The government of Georgia respectfully asks the honorable court to examine the case on merits to find violation of Article 3, 5, 8, 13, 14, and 18 of the convention, Article 1 and 2 of Protocol 1, Article 4 of Protocol 4, and Article 1 of Protocol 7.
AP1 (Applicant): To award just satisfaction under Article 41, namely compensation, reparation, restitution in integrum, cost, expenses, and further and other relief to be specified for all the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage suffered or incurred by the injured parties as a result of the violations and the pursuit of these proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Your Excellencies, let me finish here and
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Ms. Burjaliani.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Then I give the floor to Mr. Matyushkin for the government of the Russian Federation.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Mr. Matyushkin, please.
GR1 (Government): Уважаемый господин председатель, уважаемый судья европейского суда, ряд утверждений, которые прозвучали сейчас в речи моей уважаемой Зави, заставили меня изменить планируемое начало выступления.
GR1 (Government): Я хочу обратить внимание высокого суда на то, что сейчас мы неоднократно от представителей грузинского правительства слышали ссылки на допросы, на устные показания грузинских свидетелей в рамках слушаний, которые стоялись в Большой Палате в феврале прошлого года.
GR1 (Government): 6 декабря 2011 года власти Российской Федерации получили официальное уведомление из европейского суда о том, что суд налагает прямой запрет на ссылки, делать любые ссылки на эти слушания.
GR1 (Government): И при подготовке к сегодняшнему заседанию мы строго следовали этому судебному запрету.
GR1 (Government): Поскольку сейчас, уважаемый представитель правительства Грузии, неоднократно ссылалось на конкретные свидетельские показания, на фамилии грузинских свидетелей, которые были заслушаны в рамках этих устных слушаний, а именно к Белашвили, Габуне, ряд других, я бы просил суд, при оценке всех представленных доказательств, не принимать во внимание те утверждения грузинской стороны, которые основывались на этих сведениях, поскольку эти сведения были представлены в нарушении прямого запрета европейского суда и очевидно нарушают равенство сторон в данном судебном заседании.
GR1 (Government): Тем не менее, я с другой стороны хотел бы сказать, что те слушания и протоколы этих допросов свидетелей являются чрезвычайно интересным историческим документом, и любой, кто бы хотел разобраться в этом деле, оно мне тоже при всем объеме фактического материала не представляется достаточно сложным, способен эти документы изучить, и они, безусловно, на многое проливают свет.
GR1 (Government): Сделав это заявление, я хотел бы, тем не менее, вернуться, уважаемые судьи, к своей речи, так как я ее планировал в самом начале.
GR1 (Government): После всего я хотел бы отметить приверженность Российской Федерации основным правам человека и свободам, закрепленным в Конвенции, а также развитие соседских отношений с Грузией, с народом которой нас объединяют многовековые экономические и культурные связи.
GR1 (Government): Я хотел бы также заявить, что российские власти никогда не преследовали цели, не осуществляли и не планируют осуществлять в отношении граждан Грузии действий дискриминационного характера по признаку гражданства и этнической принадлежности.