5.  The applicants were born in 1966 and 1985 respectively. They live in Perm, Russia. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
  The circumstances of the case
6.  In 1995 the first applicant moved to Russia from Tajikistan. In 1998 he was sentenced by the Dzerzhinsky District Court in Perm to eight years of imprisonment for drug trafficking. In 2011 that conviction was expunged.
7.  At some point after his arrival in Russia, the first applicant entered into a relationship with the second applicant. In 2006 the couple had a son and in 2009 they officially registered their marriage. There were two other children in the applicants’ family from the second applicant’s previous marriage.
8.  The documents submitted indicate that the first applicant lived in Russia on regularly extended temporary residence permits and was allowed to work. He was also involved with the Union of Tajiks in Russia (Союз Таджиков России), a public organisation promoting cultural ties between Tajikistan and Russia.
9.  On 13 May 2013 the first applicant left Russia to go to Tajikistan. On 21 May 2013 on his way back to Russia, at Yekaterinburg Koltsovo airport, he was informed that he was not allowed to re-enter the country. The written notice given to him stated that he was the subject of an exclusion order and of a re‑entry ban on the basis of section 27 § 1 of the Entry Procedure Act, that is to say “for the purposes of ensuring the defensive capacity or security of the State, or protecting public order or health”. No indication of the length of the ban’s duration, the authority responsible or any other information was given.
10.  After the first applicant had been refused admission to Russia, on various dates between May and November 2013 the second applicant sent requests to a number of executive authorities, including the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Федеральная служба безопасности (ФСБ)) (hereinafter “the FSS”) and its department in the Perm Region (Федеральная служба безопасности по Пермскому краю) (hereinafter “the Regional FSS”), the Federal Border Service (Пограничная служба), the Russian Ministry of the Interior (Министерство внутренних дел Российской Федерации) (МВД)), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации (МИД)), the Russian Drug Enforcement Agency (Федеральная служба Российской Федерации по контролю за оборотом наркотиков (ФСКН)), and the Russian Federal Migration Service (Управлении Федеральной миграционной службы (ФМС)) (hereinafter “the FMS”) and its Perm Region department (hereinafter “the Perm Region FMS”) asking whether it had been they who had taken the decision for the first applicant to be excluded from Russia. In their replies the agencies either denied having provided the basis for the re-entry ban or refused to provide information. The applicants furnished the Court with copies of their information requests to the above agencies and their replies.
11.  In the absence of information concerning the basis for the exclusion and the executive authority responsible therefor, in December 2013 the applicants lodged a complaint with the Leninskiy District Court of Perm against the Perm Region FMS, alleging that it had taken the decision to exclude the first applicant for reasons unknown and stating that the first applicant’s inability to enter Russia had disrupted their family life. By a decision of 20 February 2014 the Leninskiy District Court rejected the complaint, stating that the subject of the complaint should have been not the Perm Region FMS, but the Regional FSS.
12.  At the end of February 2014 the applicants lodged a complaint against the Regional FSS with the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Perm and requested that the exclusion order be quashed and the re-entry ban lifted. The Dzerzhinsky District Court forwarded the complaint to the Perm Regional Court (hereinafter “the Regional Court”), as under domestic regulations regional courts were to examine cases involving State secrets.
13.  On 16 May 2014 the Regional Court examined the complaint in camera. Prior to that examination the second applicant and the applicants’ counsel gave undertakings of confidentiality concerning the information examined in camera hearing. The Regional FSS provided the court with the case file concerning the first applicant. The file, which seemed to comprise about two hundred and forty pages, was reviewed by the judge within the space of a few minutes. Neither the second applicant nor the applicants’ counsel was allowed to see the file’s contents.
14.  The Regional FSS was represented at the hearing by its counsel. Another FSS officer, an operational search officer who had participated in operational measures against the first applicant, was called as a witness. According to the executive agency, the exclusion order and the re-entry ban had been imposed on the first applicant on the basis of a report drafted by the Regional FSS dated 7 September 2012 according to which the first applicant was a member of an extremist group and had incited ethnic tensions. The Regional FSS refused to specify which actions of the first applicant had served as the basis for the ban. When the applicants’ counsel tried to question the FSS operational officer concerning the factual basis for the report of 7 September 2012, the latter refused (with the judge’s approval) to answer. According to the second applicant, neither she nor her counsel was allowed access to any of the documents that had served as the basis for the exclusion order.
15.  On 16 May 2014 the Regional Court upheld the first applicant’s exclusion and the re-entry ban, stating, inter alia, that according to the witness statement of the FSS operational search officer “the [first] applicant had been involved in activities threatening State security. This has been confirmed by the secret operational documents presented, which have been reviewed by the court and returned to the representative of the FSS”. The court further stated that the decision to exclude the first applicant had been issued in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law and its reasoning had referred to the information submitted by the Regional FSS; therefore, it had been lawful. As to whether the imposition of the re-entry ban amounted to an interference with the right to family life, the court stated that interests of the society prevailed over the private interests of the [first] applicant. The court further stated that given the fact that the entry ban was valid at least until the end of 2014, the second applicant and her son could visit the first applicant in the summer of 2014 during the school holidays.
(b)  Appeal to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
16.  The applicants lodged an appeal against the decision of 16 May 2014 with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (hereinafter “the Supreme Court”) stating, inter alia, that (i) neither they nor their representative – despite having given an undertaking of confidentiality – had been told anything about the content of the information that had served as the basis for the exclusion and (ii) the court had taken into account the operational information furnished by the Regional FSS even though that evidence had not been formally submitted and should therefore not have been considered. The applicants further stated that the information furnished by the FSS did not give details of the nature of the first applicant’s activity that had allegedly posed a risk to the national security. Finally, the applicants stated that the ban had disrupted their family life and that the Regional Court had failed to balance the interests at stake.
17.  On 23 July 2014 the Supreme Court upheld the decision of 16 May 2014, stating in general terms that the Regional Court had duly examined the legal basis for the exclusion, and that its decision had been lawful and had balanced public and private interests.
18.  As can be seen from the documents submitted it is unclear until what date the first applicant’s re-entry ban shall remain in force.
19.  According to the Government, on 10 January 2015 the first applicant re-entered Russia. On 20 March 2015 the Perm Region FMS granted him a temporary residence permit, valid until 20 March 2018. The first applicant currently resides in Russia.
20.  On 13 January 2015 the Regional FSS lodged a claim for reimbursement of transportation and lodging expenses related to the examination of the appeal against the first applicant’s exclusion order on 23 July 2014 by the Supreme Court in Moscow. The Regional Court examined the claim in camera and ruled that the first applicant was to reimburse the amount of 19,404 Russian roubles (RUB) (about 300 euros (EUR)), as claimed. On 4 April 2015 the applicants paid the above amount.
21.  As regards the Court’s request in respect of the information and documents that had served as the basis for the first applicant’s exclusion, the Government did not furnish any documents.