TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR1 (Government): Et les jurés ont pu suivre ou ne pas suivre leur avis, ont décidé qu'elle aurait dû, qu'elle aurait pu, qu'elle avait le minimum de ressources intellectuelles, morales et physiques pour écrire une lettre, mais pour aussi s'arrêter à la vue de chacun de ces enfants qui, confiant, parce que sans doute c'est une bonne mère, c'est aussi quelque chose qui n'a jamais été contesté, chaque enfant a répondu à son appel pour la dernière fois.
GR1 (Government): Et voilà, c'est ce que les jurés ont eu en tête, ils ont sans doute eu en tête l'atrocité des faits plus que l'avis difficile de Mme Lhermitte, et c'est ce qui a fait pencher la balance en sa défaveur, mais ils en avaient le droit, ils avaient le droit d'être plus sensibles au sort des enfants qu'à celui de l'auteur, ils avaient le droit de ne pas suivre le deuxième avis unanime des experts.
GR1 (Government): Alors ça pose évidemment la question du jury populaire, peut-être des magistrats professionnels auraient-ils été plus sensibles à l'avis des experts, on ne peut le dire.
GR1 (Government): Alors Maître Manier vous l'a dit aussi, évidemment à l'article 352 du code d'instruction criminelle, si le jury pose un verdict totalement incompatible avec les faits et ou le droit, c'est très rare évidemment, il faudrait que le jury s'égare, qu'il soit incohérent dans les explications, parce qu'il y avait bien quand même une discussion entre les jurés et la cour.
GR1 (Government): Et la dureté des termes qui ont été relevés par Maître Manier vous indique bien que ce sont sans doute les termes du jury.
GR1 (Government): Oui on a entendu tout ça, toutes ces difficultés, on a entendu, mais ça ne justifie pas, ça n'explique pas, ce n'est pas suffisant pour nous.
GR1 (Government): Ce sont sans doute les termes du jury et pas de la cour, d'où cette dureté terrible.
GR1 (Government): Alors bon voilà, l'affaire est humainement tragique pour tous, en ce compris la requérante.
GR1 (Government): Doit-on pour autant considérer qu'en l'espèce, la procédure dans son ensemble ne permet raisonnablement pas de conclure que le jury avait l'intime conviction que tout contact avec la réalité, toute possibilité d'interrompre ses actes, n'avait pas disparu?
GR1 (Government): Serait-il proportionné d'accéder ici à la demande de la requérante d'obtenir un nouveau procès et de faire revivre le drame à tous les protagonistes?
GR1 (Government): Faut-il rejuger à chaque fois qu'un juge ou un jury ne peut se résoudre à comprendre l'incompréhensible?
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Les parties seront informées de la date du prononcé.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Please be seated.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): I declare open the public hearing on the merits in the case of Georgia against Russia. The case was lodged with the court by the government of Georgia
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): on the 26th of March 2007 under Article 33 of the Convention. The application was allocated to the fifth
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): section of the court pursuant to Rule 51, paragraph 3 of the Rules of Court.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): The application was declared admissible on the 30th of June 2009.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): On the 15th of December 2009 the chamber decided to relinquish jurisdiction in favor of the Grand Chamber, none of the parties having objected to the relinquishment.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): From the 31st of January to the 4th of February 2011 a delegation of judges took oral evidence from several witnesses in Strasbourg.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): The government of the Russian Federation are represented by their representative Mr. Georgy Matyushkin,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): assisted by Ms. Natalia Zyabkina,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): first deputy head of the representative's office, as well as by Ms. Zemskova,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Ms. Irina Sergeievna, Mr. Yuri Petukhov,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Ms. Khokhrina, Mr. Spirin,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Ms. Tsimbalova, and Mr. hipitsyn,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): advisors.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): The government of Georgia are represented by Ms. Tina Burjaliani,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): first deputy minister of justice, and by Mr. Levan Meskhoradze,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): an agent assisted by Ms. Ketevan Sokmolidze,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Ms. Miriam Vashakidze,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): and Ms. Nino Abramishvili, advisors.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): I welcome the representatives of the parties in the name of the court.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Having consulted the representatives of the parties, I have determined the order of address is as follows.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): Ms. Burjaliani for the government of Georgia will speak first,
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): and then Mr. Matyushkin for the government of the Russian Federation.
Peer Lorenzen (JudgeP): I call Ms. Burjaliani, please.
AP1 (Applicant): Good morning, Mr. President, distinguished members of the Court.
AP1 (Applicant): As always, it is a great pleasure for me to appear before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of the Government of Georgia.
AP1 (Applicant): I with my co-agents will present Georgia's arguments both on admissibility and the merits of the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, Though voluminous, the present case is simple.
AP1 (Applicant): It is about mass human rights violations exercised by the Respondent State through arrest, detention, and expulsion of ethnic Georgians from the Russian Federation in the fall of 2006.
AP1 (Applicant): International community and the Russian human rights defenders, including the Human Rights Commissioner, have qualified the situation as ethnically motivated, gross human rights violations supported and tolerated by the authorities of the Respondent State.
AP1 (Applicant): In the words of the Human Rights Watch, ethnic Georgians were singled out.
AP1 (Applicant): Thousands of Georgians were detained and expelled, including many Georgians residing legally in Russia.
AP1 (Applicant): Human Rights Watch continues, and I quote, Georgian authorities denied basic rights to many of the detained, including access to a lawyer or possibility of appealing the expulsion decisions taken against them.
AP1 (Applicant): Most were given trials lasting only a few minutes.
AP1 (Applicant): Georgians were held in sometimes appalling conditions of detention, and in some cases were subjected to threats and other ill-treatment.
AP1 (Applicant): End of the quote.
AP1 (Applicant): The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation confirms that in 2006, nationalistic and xenophobic attitudes continued to proliferate in Russia, and that the cases of violence and mass conflicts due to racial, ethnic, or religious intolerance have become quite frequent.
AP1 (Applicant): In the course of this litigation, Georgia has furnished the court with a variety of evidence supporting its claims.
AP1 (Applicant): The most recent expression of Georgia's observations is provided in the submission of November 30, 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): Being conscious of time and the fact that the Honorable Court has access to our more detailed written observations, as well as the first-handed information provided by the witnesses during the hearings of January 30, February 4, 2011, I will elaborate on the most important questions of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): In the first part of my presentation, I will show that the facts challenged shall be qualified as administrative practice that makes the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies inapplicable, as confirmed by the court in its admissibility decision on the present case dated June 30, 2009.
AP1 (Applicant): Then I will show that in any case, no effective remedies were available for Georgian nationals in the respondent state at the material time.
AP1 (Applicant): In the next part of my presentation, I will summarize Georgia's claims on merits, and finally, I will present the applicant state's prayers for relief.
AP1 (Applicant): The facts challenged in Georgia's application constitute administrative practice that automatically relieves the applicant state from the obligation to exhaust domestic remedies before seizing the court.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the court's case law, administrative practice comprises two elements, repetition of acts and official tolerance.
AP1 (Applicant): In the Ireland v. UK, the repetition of acts has been defined as an accumulation of identical
AP1 (Applicant): or analogous breaches which are sufficiently numerous and interconnected to amount not merely to isolated incidents or exceptions, but to a pattern or a system.
AP1 (Applicant): Its essential feature is that the acts complained of form a pattern or system in a sense that some link or connection exists in the circumstances surrounding the particular acts.
AP1 (Applicant): For example, time and place where the acts occur and the attitude of the persons involved, and that they are not simply a number of isolated acts.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the findings in the Greek case, practice arises when there are a substantial number of acts which are the expression of a general situation.
AP1 (Applicant): In the same Greek case, it was established that the second element of administrative practice, official tolerance, may be found to exist on two alternative levels, that of the direct superiors of those immediately responsible for the acts involved or that of a higher authority.
AP1 (Applicant): Official tolerance exists where, though acts are plainly illegal, they are tolerated in the sense that the superiors of those immediately responsible, though cognizant of such acts, take no action to punish them or prevent their repetition.
AP1 (Applicant): Or that higher authority, in face of numerous allegations, manifests indifference by refusing adequate investigation of their truth or falsity, or that in judicial proceedings, a fair hearing of such complaints is denied.
AP1 (Applicant): In the Ireland v. UK, the Commission had regard to two factors which must be considered in
AP1 (Applicant): relation to each other, namely, knowledge on the part of the superior officers of those having committed the acts in question, or knowledge of higher level authorities and action taken which might have prevented occurrence and repetition of such acts, including punitive and disciplinary action.
AP1 (Applicant): In the same case, the Court observed that it is inconceivable that the higher authorities of a State should be, or at least should be, entitled to be unaware of the existence of such practice.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, under the Convention, those authorities are strictly liable for the conduct of their subordinates.
AP1 (Applicant): They are under duty to impose their will on subordinates and cannot shelter behind their inability to ensure that it is respected.
AP1 (Applicant): Practice at the higher level may be found to exist even if the higher authorities have taken certain measures, including criminal prosecution of some of the acts, so long as these measures are not on a scale which is sufficient to put an end to the repetition of acts or to interrupt the pattern or system.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, in the France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands v. Turkey case,
AP1 (Applicant): it was noted that an administrative practice may exist in the absence of, or even contrary to, specific legislation.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Your Excellencies, I have briefly overviewed the principles and rules developed
AP1 (Applicant): in your case law.
AP1 (Applicant): These principles and rules are perfectly applicable to the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): Within a short period of time, a few thousand Georgians were singled out by the Respondent State authorities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other big Russian cities, and were deported
AP1 (Applicant): at least by four chartered flights.
AP1 (Applicant): First time ever.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Border Police of Georgia, number of deportees from the Russian Federation increased more than eight times in October and November 2006, compared to the previous months and years.
AP1 (Applicant): Though extremely instructive, the data collected by the Border Police refer only to those deportees who arrived to Georgia directly from the Russian Federation.
AP1 (Applicant): Big number of deportees came through neighboring countries, and their first post of departure is normally not indicated in the entry application.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus, a number of deportees should be much higher.
AP1 (Applicant): The Respondent State failed to provide any relevant data that could have shed more light on the issue.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the applicant submits that the data available in the Ministry of Internal Affairs Border Police of Georgia should be used by the court as a reliable source of information.
AP1 (Applicant): As regards the official tolerance, we would like first to kindly draw the court's attention to the official instructions and orders issued by various authorities of the Respondent State.
AP1 (Applicant): The instructions issued by local police units in St. Petersburg and in Moscow on October
AP1 (Applicant): 2 and 3 are implementing the circular number 0215 of September 30, 2006, issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg, and circular number 849, issued
AP1 (Applicant): a day earlier, September 29, 2006, by the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation.
AP1 (Applicant): At the same time, the letters demanding information about Georgian pupils and their parents were sent to schools in different parts of the Respondent State.
AP1 (Applicant): Many of these pupils and parents were later arrested and deported.
AP1 (Applicant): The picture is clear.
AP1 (Applicant): On September 29, 2006, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, being politically motivated, issued the order and the subordinated authorities followed by implementing instructions and by the actions.
AP1 (Applicant): The Respondent State and its witnesses could not deny that the circulars number 0215 and 849 do exist and that they are ethnic-specific.
AP1 (Applicant): They could not deny either that the letters were sent to schools in violation of both domestic and international law.
AP1 (Applicant): What the Respondent State denies is that the circulars breach the rights of ethnic Georgians.
AP1 (Applicant): In relation to the letters sent to schools, the Respondent State shifts the burden on lower-level local officials.
AP1 (Applicant): Unfortunately, despite the repeated attempts and requests from the Court, the Respondent State has not submitted the circular number 0215 and the order number 849 to the Court for its examination.
AP1 (Applicant): In light of the disregard of the Court's request, the applicant submits that the Court should draw inferences and make conclusions based on the information available in other sources, including the witness statements, the reports of international and local NGOs, and the report of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Russian Federation.
AP1 (Applicant): It is instructive that the Commissioner Lukin officially requested the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to investigate the issue of illegal instructions and orders.
AP1 (Applicant): We have learned from the Respondent State in the course of this litigation that no conclusive decision was made in this regard.
AP1 (Applicant): It is further disappointing that, despite the invitation, we did not have an opportunity to hear Commissioner Lukin and Mr. Piotrowski of St. Petersburg, whose name appears on one
AP1 (Applicant): of the important instructions.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Your Excellencies,
AP1 (Applicant): In light of the ethnic-specific orders and circulars issued by the Respondent State authorities on September 29 and 30, the identical letters sent to schools in different geographically remote areas, the mass arrest of ethnic Georgians, and very light or no punishment of those low-level officials whose responsibilities could not have been denied, it would be inconceivable to argue that the anti-Georgian campaign was a local initiative of overzealous officials.
AP1 (Applicant): In fact, it is obvious that the Respondent State orchestrated the illegal policy of arrest, detention in human conditions, and expulsion of ethnic Georgians.
AP1 (Applicant): The absence of adequate investigation and punishment supports that the campaign was orchestrated by the high authorities of the Respondent State and those officials whose letters and teletypes leaked in the media were just implementing the superior orders.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore the Applicant State submits that the Court shall establish administrative practice in the present case and shall find a breach of Article 38 by the Respondent State for non-cooperation and non-disclosure of the requested documents.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Your Excellencies, in line with your own findings in previous case law,
AP1 (Applicant): including the admissibility decision on the present case, we further submit that the administrative practice makes the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies inapplicable.
AP1 (Applicant): In alternative, should the Court rule otherwise, we would like to submit that the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies does not apply to the present case, as there were no effective remedies available to ethnic Georgians in the Russian Federation, at least in the period before seizing the Court.
AP1 (Applicant): The Applicant State provided very detailed arguments on exhaustion of domestic remedies in its written observations.
AP1 (Applicant): In particular, I would kindly draw the Court's attention to the pages 32 to 65 of the observations of November 30, 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): In the often cited case of Ireland v. UK, the Court found that when tolerance
AP1 (Applicant): has been shown to exist at a higher level of the State, this fact alone would be a strong indication that the complainant has no possibility of obtaining redress through any national organ, including the courts, and that, therefore, the domestic remedies are not applicable.
AP1 (Applicant): In the same case, it was found that even if tolerance is observed only at the lower level, while there may be potentially the remedies to be exhausted, the Commission must have regard to the question whether or not the higher authorities of the State have themselves exercised their duty towards the individuals concerned to identify the practice and to prevent the occurrence or repetition of that act in question.
AP1 (Applicant): In Akdiva v. Turkey, this Court obligated the applicants to have normal recourse
AP1 (Applicant): to the remedies which are available and sufficient to afford redress in respect of the breaches alleged.
AP1 (Applicant): For a remedy to be available, it must exist at the time the application is lodged and must be directly accessible to individuals.
AP1 (Applicant): We argue that no remedy was available to the Georgian nationals at the time the present application was lodged.
AP1 (Applicant): Firstly, the Russian officials have effectively precluded Georgian nationals from exhausting domestic remedies.
AP1 (Applicant): In a short period of time, thousands of ethnic Georgians were singled out and expelled.
AP1 (Applicant): According to the Human Rights Watch, while many expelled may technically have had a judicial decision ordering their 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 the many were effectively denied the right to appeal, points to Russia's failure to comply with its ECHR obligations.
AP1 (Applicant): The witnesses who testified before the Court confirmed that they had short collective trials, they had not received decisions on expulsion, they were not represented by a counsel and or by interpreter to understand the essence of the proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): They were not informed about the possibility of appeal, but were encouraged by police and judicial officials to leave the country as soon as possible, as there was a special order, brikas, demanding their expulsion.
AP1 (Applicant): It should be further observed that on 3 October 2006, all aerial, road, maritime, railway, postal, and financial links were suspended between the two states.
AP1 (Applicant): While there is no need to argue about the general ineffectiveness of the domestic remedies in the Russian Federation, the Georgian government strongly believes that due to the special circumstances prevailing at the material time, remedies, even those theoretically available in the Russian legislation, became futile.
AP1 (Applicant): The Court acknowledged in the Aktyvar case that the existence of special circumstances may absolve an applicant from the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies.
AP1 (Applicant): We suggest the Court to make realistic account of not only the existence of formal remedies in the legal system of the Russian Federation, but also the general legal and political context in which they operated, as well as the personal circumstances of Georgian nationals at that time.
AP1 (Applicant): Human Rights Watch describes the general and case-specific situation in the Respondent State at relevant time as follows.
AP1 (Applicant): Immediately after the escalation of Russian-Georgian political tension in late September 2006, Russian officials made repeated public statements singling out Georgians as illegal migrants, portraying them as criminals and calling for measures to be taken against them.
AP1 (Applicant): Russian television stations, the largest of which are owned and controlled by people close to the government, actively supported and justified the government singling out of Georgians through daily news programs and other programmings, and often quoted senior officials making strong anti-Georgian statements.
AP1 (Applicant): At the same time, Moscow police began to conduct widespread document inspections of ethnic Georgians.
AP1 (Applicant): To more efficiently locate Georgians, some police officers targeted locations where Georgians were likely to assemble.
AP1 (Applicant): The factual circumstances of the present case, as reflected in the witness statements, media, and NGO reports, as well as in the assessments of international organizations, viewed in the prism of the Court's well-developed case law, absolve the applicant from the requirements to exhaust domestic remedies.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, Your Excellencies, with your permission, I would like to move to the
AP1 (Applicant): applicant's claims on merits of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): As Your Excellencies are well informed, the applicant government argues that the Russian Federation violated Articles 3, 5, 8, 13, 14, and 18 of the Convention, Articles 1 and 2 of Protocol 1, Article 4 of Protocol 4, and Article 1 of Protocol 7.
AP1 (Applicant): I will briefly explore both the law and the facts supporting applicant state's claims on violation of the said provisions of the Convention and the protocols thereto.
AP1 (Applicant): We maintain our detailed submissions on merits that are provided in our original application and in the observations submitted on November 30, 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): Your Excellencies, Respondent State has violated Article 3 of the Convention with respect to arrest, detention, and expulsion conditions of the Georgian nationals in the fall of 2006.
AP1 (Applicant): The detention conditions both in police isolators and in the detention centers for foreign nationals were appalling.
AP1 (Applicant): The witnesses who have testified to the Court have confirmed that the detention cells were extremely overcrowded, hygiene conditions were very poor, and they had no access to medical professionals, even when very much needed.
AP1 (Applicant): The detailed summary of witness statements in relation to detention conditions, as well as the means of expulsion of ethnic Georgians, is provided on pages 66 to 70 of Georgia's written observation of November 30, 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): In my presentation today, I will show why those witness statements shall be regarded as compelling.