4.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
5.  The applicant was born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, in 1971 and came to Russia in 1993. He graduated from a vocational training college in the Arkhangelsk Region. He has no identity documents.
6.  On 14 August 2014 the Directorate of the Federal Migration Service for the Arkhangelsk Region declared applicant’s stay in the Russia undesirable (“the exclusion order”). This order was based on his multiple convictions in the administrative and criminal proceedings. The applicant was required to leave Russia voluntarily by 14 September 2014. He was informed of this decision on 27 August 2014.
7.  Since the applicant failed to depart voluntarily, on 2 October 2014 the Plesetskiy District Court in the Arkhangelsk Region found him guilty of failing to leave Russia within the specified time-limit, which was an offence Article 18.8 § 1.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences, imposed a fine on him and ordered his administrative removal from Russia. Pending his removal, the applicant was to be detained in a special facility for the detention of aliens. The removal and detention order indicated that the applicant was an apatride.
8.  The applicant was initially placed in one such facility in Arkhangelsk. A few days later the building was damaged by fire. On 7 October the applicant was transferred to the Krasnoye Selo facility in the Leningrad Region (СУВСИГ УФМС по СПб и ЛО).
9.  Replying to an inquiry from the Federal Migration Service, on 12 November 2014 the Embassy of Tajikistan confirmed that the applicant was not a national of that State. Subsequently, a bailiff asked the District Court in St Petersburg to discontinue the enforcement proceedings because the applicant could not be issued with travel documents or removed from Russia. On 4 December 2014 the Oktyabrskiy District Court refused her application, finding that it had not been shown that the bailiff had taken sufficient measures to secure the applicant’s removal.
10.  On 8 May 2015 counsel for the applicant asked the Plesetskiy District Court to discontinue the enforcement of the removal and detention order. He submitted that the applicant was an apatride, that no State was willing to accept him, and that he had already spent seven months in custody in poor conditions.
11.  On 4 June 2015 the District Court rejected the application. It considered that even an apatride could be removed from Russia and that the length of the applicant’s detention had not been unreasonable.
12.  On appeal from counsel, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court set aside the District Court’s decision. Referring to the case-law of the Russian Constitutional Court prohibiting indefinite detention of individuals (judgment no. 6-P of 17 February 1998), it held that the removal and detention order should have set the maximum period of the applicant’s detention.
13.  On 31 July 2015 the District Court carried out a fresh determination of the application. It found that enforcement was no longer feasible because the applicant was not a national of Tajikistan and that he had already spent a long time in the detention centre. The District Court discontinued the execution of the removal and detention order and ordered the applicant’s release. He was released on the same day.
14.  In so far as the parties’ descriptions of the conditions of the applicant’s detention coincided or were undisputed, they may be summarised as follows. The applicant shared the cell with three other detainees. Its floor surface was given as fifteen square metres by the applicant and as twenty-seven square metres by the Government. Each detainee had his own bed and bed linen. A squat toilet and a sink were placed inside the cell and separated with a one-metre-high wall. Detainees were allowed to spend up to fifteen minutes outside per week, in the courtyard of the facility. Food was brought in pre-cooked, the ration did not include fish, dairy products or fresh fruit.