6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
7.  The applicant was born in 1984 and moved to live in Russia in the early 2000s.
8.  In 2008 she met A.U., a Russian national, and they started living together in the Krasnodar Region. In 2009 the applicant’s daughter from a previous marriage moved in with them to attend a primary school. On 16 March 2012 the applicant and A.U. married and on 23 August 2012 their son was born. He acquired Russian nationality.
9.  On 30 March 2013 the applicant was returning home by train after a visit to Ukraine, together with the two children. Shortly after midnight on 31 March 2013 the Russian Border Control Service handed her a notice, informing her that she would not be allowed to re-enter Russia, in accordance with the Entry and Exit Procedures Act. The notice did not specify the grounds for that decision.
10.  In April 2013 the applicant’s husband obtained a copy of a decision pronouncing her presence in Russia to be undesirable (“the exclusion order”), which the Consumer Protection Authority (CPA) had issued on 9 June 2012. The text of the order indicated that the applicant’s presence in Russia had been declared undesirable by the Krasnodar regional division of the CPA on 9 June 2012, in accordance with section 25.10 of the Entry and Exit Procedures Act. It did not state any facts or reasons for the applicant’s exclusion. It directed the applicant to leave Russia by 22 June 2012 or face deportation and informed her that she would be denied re-entry to Russia, in accordance with section 27 of the Entry and Exit Procedures Act. It subsequently transpired that the basis for the exclusion order was that during her pregnancy in 2012 the applicant had tested positive for HIV and that the hospital had reported her HIV-positive status to the CPA.
11.  According to the Government, the Krasnodar division of the CPA sent the exclusion order to the applicant by registered mail on 19 June 2012. They produced a log of registered correspondence which was to be submitted to the post office for dispatch on that date.
12.  The applicant’s husband, acting as the claimant and also as the applicant’s representative, challenged the exclusion order before the Russian courts, claiming in particular that the CPA had disregarded the applicant’s family connections in Russia and her state of health.
13.  On 24 May 2013 the Tsentralnyy District Court in Sochi rejected the claim in summary fashion, repeating verbatim the text of the exclusion order and holding that it was lawful. On 23 July 2013 the Krasnodar Regional Court upheld the District Court’s judgment, finding that the applicant’s infection with HIV “created a real threat to the Russian population”.
14.  In the statement of appeal to the cassation instance, the applicant’s husband prayed in aid the position of the Russian Constitutional Court which emphasised the necessity to take humanitarian considerations into account when deciding on the removal of a family member, and on the Court’s case‑law under Article 8 of the Convention. He pointed out that the applicant’s husband and newborn son were Russian nationals, that her daughter was enrolled in a Russian school and that the HIV infection was in a latent stage. On 30 September and 19 December 2013 the Krasnodar Regional Court and the Supreme Court of Russia respectively issued summary decisions, dismissing the application for an examination of the case by the cassation instance.
15.  The applicant and her daughter eventually took up residence in Novogrodovka in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine. Her husband and their son have been living in St Petersburg, Russia. The husband was unable to visit her in the Donetsk Region.
16.  On 12 March 2015 the Constitutional Court ruled on a constitutional challenge brought by the applicant and two other aliens and their Russian spouses against section 11(2) of the HIV Prevention Act, section 7(1)(13) of the Foreign Nationals Act, and section 25.10 of the Entry and Exit Procedures Act. The Constitutional Court held that migration laws can lawfully restrict access to Russia by non-Russian nationals whose medical condition might jeopardise public health and pose a threat to national security. It acknowledged the contemporary medical consensus that HIV did not pose a threat to public health because it could not be transmitted merely because of the presence of an infected individual in the country or through casual contact, airborne particles, food or water. The Constitutional Court held as follows:
“1.  To declare that the closely related provisions of section 25.10 of the Entry and Exit Procedures Act, section 11(2) of the HIV Prevention Act, and section 7(1)(13) of the Foreign Nationals Act are incompatible with the Russian Constitution ... in so far as they allow [the executive authorities] to declare undesirable the presence of a foreign national or a stateless person whose family permanently resides in Russia, to issue a deportation order or an entry ban, to refuse him a residence permit or to cancel a previously issued residence permit solely because that person is HIV-positive, provided that the person has complied with the legal requirements on HIV-positive individuals relating to the prevention of spreading the infection, and provided that no other circumstances would call for such restrictions. 2.  The federal legislator should – in the light of the requirements of the Russian Constitution and the position of the Constitutional Court, as expressed in the present judgment – introduce the necessary amendments into the existing corpus of laws which would clarify the grounds and the procedure for making decisions relating to the right of HIV-positive foreign nationals or stateless persons to stay and live in the Russian Federation.”
Pending such amendments, the Constitutional Court directed that the executive and judicial authorities be guided by the position it had formulated in the judgment.
17.  On 20 April 2015 the applicant’s husband applied to the Tsentralnyy District Court in Sochi for a reconsideration of the District Court’s judgment of 24 May 2013 on account of the new case-law of the Constitutional Court. On 3 July 2015 the District Court dismissed his application. It found that, lacking the information that the applicant had been receiving antiretroviral therapy, she must be presumed to be a threat to others, including those with whom she had social and casual contact. The District Court also stated that she was not a law-abiding individual because she had given birth to a child in Russia after her presence there had been declared undesirable.
18.  The applicant’s husband appealed and on 22 October 2015 the Krasnodar Regional Court quashed the above judgment, finding that the District Court had not heeded the position of the Constitutional Court and had incorrectly shifted the burden of proof onto the applicant:
“The Krasnodar office of the Consumer Protection Authority did not produce any evidence of Ms Ustinova’s conviction under Article 122 of the Criminal Code (Infection by HIV) and/or under Article 6.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences (Concealing the source of HIV infection). Nor did it show that she had breached any obligation which the law imposes on HIV-positive individuals, for instance, by refusing to take antiretroviral therapy. No such information is available in the case file, whereas the court establishes that [the applicant and her husband] are both receiving medical treatment. It follows that the first-instance court’s finding that Ms Ustinova’s presence constitutes a threat to other Russian residents, including those with whom she has had social and casual contact, is erroneous and contradicts the Constitutional Court’s judgment since the mere fact of HIV infection is not a ground for applying such important restrictions on her private life.”
19.  The Regional Court pronounced the exclusion order unlawful and directed the Krasnodar office of the Consumer Protection Authority to redress the effects of the violation.
20.  In response to the Court’s request for additional information of 12 May 2016 (see paragraph 4 above), on 29 June 2016 the Government submitted that the applicant had crossed the Russian border on 17 August 2015. On 18 May 2016 the Federal Migration Service issued her a three‑year temporary residence permit. On 31 May 2016 the Consumer Protection Authority informed the Border Control Service about the annulment of the exclusion order. Lastly, the Government indicated that measures for removing her name from the list of persons who should be refused entry to Russia, “[were] being taken”.
21.  The applicant replied that she had only been able to re-enter Russia by crossing the border between Ukraine and Belarus and by continuing from Belarus to Russia, as there are no controls on the Belarus-Russia border. As of 16 August 2016, she has not been notified that the exclusion order of 9 June 2012 was formally rescinded and that the Border Control database was updated accordingly.