FIRST SECTION
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CASE OF BIMURADOVA v. RUSSIA
 
(Application no. 3769/11)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
 
STRASBOURG
 
12 November 2015
 
 
FINAL
 
14/03/2016
 
 
 
This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Bimuradova v. Russia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:
 András Sajó, President,
 Elisabeth Steiner,
 Khanlar Hajiyev,
 Julia Laffranque,
 Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos,
 Erik Møse,
 Dmitry Dedov, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 20 October 2015,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in an application (no. 3769/11) against the Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Russian national, Ms Toita Bimuradova (“the applicant”), on 2 December 2010. 2. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights. 3. The applicant alleged that in May 2002 her brother had been abducted by State servicemen in Chechnya and that no effective investigation of the matter had taken place. 4. On 9 September 2011 the application was communicated to the Government. THE FACTS
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
5. The applicant was born in 1966 and lives in Bas-Gordali, Chechnya. She is the sister of Mr Magomed Bimuradov, who was born in 1972. A. Abduction of Mr Magomed Bimuradov
6. According to the applicant, at about 3 p.m. on 27 May 2002 (in the documents submitted the date is also referred to as 26 May 2002) Mr Magomed Bimuradov was abducted from a street in the vicinity of his house in Bas‑Gordali by a group of armed masked men in a white car. He was forced into the car which drove away in the direction of the village of Shuani in the Nozhay-Yurt district of Chechnya. The abductors allegedly belonged to the federal forces. 7. The applicant’s brother has been missing since. 8. In her submission to the Court the applicant stated that her brother’s abduction had been witnessed by fellow villagers Mr E.Ts. and Ms Kh.Ts. However, she did not furnish statements of those witnesses to the Court. It does not appear that those witnesses gave statements to the official investigation. In support of her application, she submitted an undated joint statement on the factual circumstances of the case given by herself and her two sisters, Ms Kh.B. and Ms Z.Kh., none of whom were present during the abduction. 9. The Government did not dispute the facts as presented by the applicant, but denied any involvement of State servicemen in the disappearance of Mr Magomed Bimuradov. B. Official investigation into the disappearance
10. The Government submitted a copy of “the entire criminal case file no. 71056” into the abduction of Mr Magomed Bimuradov amounting to seventy-five pages. The information submitted may be summarised as follows. 1. Main investigative steps taken by the authorities
11. On 5 June 2002 Mr Magomed Bimuradov’s relatives lodged a complaint about his disappearance stating that he had gone out and had not returned home. The applicant, her four sisters, and other relatives including their father, Mr M.M.B., subsequently maintained correspondence with the authorities. 12. On 1 October 2002 the Nozhay-Yurt district prosecutor’s office opened criminal case no. 71056 under Article 105 of the Criminal Code (murder). 13. On 14 October 2002 the applicant was granted victim status in the criminal case. 14. In October and November 2002 the investigators forwarded information requests concerning Mr Magomed Bimuradov’s possible detention to various law enforcement agencies. The replies were negative. 15. On 2 December 2002 the investigation was suspended for failure to identify suspects. 16. On various dates in July 2003 the investigators, at the request of the applicant’s and her relatives, provided them with statements that Mr Magomed Bimuradov had gone missing and that he had not been involved in an illegal armed group. 17. On 31 March 2004 the military prosecutor’s office of military unit no. 20116 stated in reply to a request of March 2004 from the applicant’s sister, Ms Z.B., that it was impossible to verify the theory of the involvement of military servicemen in her brother’s disappearance. 18. On 19 April 2005 the investigation was resumed. The applicant was informed thereof. 19. On 20 May 2005 the investigation was again suspended for failure to identify suspects. The applicant was informed thereof. 20. According to the applicant, between June 2005 and November 2010 she and her relatives submitted a number of requests to the investigating authorities. For instance, on 8 November 2010 she and a number of other relatives of disappeared persons complained to the North Caucasus Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office about their relatives’ abductions by federal servicemen and the lack of effective investigation into the incidents. No reply was given to this complaint. 21. On 1 December 2011 the investigation into the disappearance was resumed following a complaint by the applicant’s relatives. The criminal proceedings are still pending. 2. Main witness statements taken by the investigators
22. On 14 October 2002 the investigators questioned the applicant who stated that at about 3 p.m. on 27 May 2001 her brother had left home and had not returned. She also noted that on the same day between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., prior to her brother’s disappearance, she had seen a suspicious white VAZ-2106 car without a registration number driving around the village. 23. On 3 May 2005 the investigators questioned the applicant’s sisters, Ms Z.Kh. and Ms Kh.B., and the head of the Bas-Gordali village administration, Mr E.K., whose statements about the events were similar to the applicant’s account before the Court. All of them stated that they had not witnessed the abduction, but had seen a white VAZ car without a registration number driving around in the village that day. II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW
24. For a summary of the relevant domestic law see Aslakhanova and Others v. Russia (nos. 2944/06, 8300/07, 50184/07, 332/08 and 42509/10, §§ 43-59, 18 December 2012). THE LAW
I. THE GOVERNMENT’S PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS
A. The parties’ submissions
1. The Government
25. The Government submitted that the applicant had not complied with the six months rule “by failing to exhaust domestic remedies”. The Government stated that “the six-month time-limit runs from [the date of] the decision by the cassation court on the applicant’s appeal; in the applicant’s case no such final decision has been taken” and further noted that the criminal investigation into the disappearance was still in progress and, therefore, it was premature to make any conclusions concerning the alleged ineffectiveness of the domestic criminal proceedings. 2. The applicant
26. The applicant argued that she had complied with the six-month rule and there had been no excessive and unexplained delays in the submission of her application to the Court. Referring to the case of Varnava and Others v. Turkey [GC], nos. 16064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90, ECHR 2009), she pointed out that the violation alleged by her, just as in the that case, was of a continuing nature to which the six month rule did not apply. 27. In particular, the applicant submitted that she had complained to the authorities shortly after the abduction and had hoped that the criminal investigation initiated thereafter would produce results just like any other official investigation initiated by the authorities in the Russian Federation, and that she had lodged her application with the Court only after she had realised that the investigation had been ineffective. The applicant pointed out that the armed conflict in Chechnya provided her with grounds to believe that delays in the investigation were inevitable. 28. As for the alleged failure to exhaust domestic remedies, the applicant submitted that she was not obliged to pursue civil remedies and that her complaints against the investigators under Article 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code would not have remedied the investigation’s shortcomings. She submitted that the only effective remedy in her case – the criminal investigation into her brother’s abduction – had proved to be ineffective. B. The Court’s assessment
1. Compliance with the six-month rule
(a)  General principles
29. Turning to the Government’s argument concerning the applicant’s failure to comply with the six-month time-limit, the Court notes that the time-limit implies that either the applicant should have brought her application to the Court within six months of the final domestic decision or within six months of the moment when she became aware of the ineffectiveness of domestic remedies (see, for example, Varnava and Others, cited above, § 157). The Court notes that the Government acknowledged the absence of a particular date or decision which could serve as a trigger for the calculation of the time-limit. Furthermore, they argued that the applicant’s complaint was premature as the investigation was still in progress. 30. The Court reiterates that the purpose of the six-month rule is to promote legal certainty, to ensure that cases are dealt with within a reasonable time and to protect the parties from uncertainty for a prolonged period of time. The rule also ensures that it is more possible to ascertain the facts of the case before that possibility fades away with time (see Abuyeva and Others v. Russia, no. 27065/05, § 172, 2 December 2010). 31. Normally, the six-month period runs from the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies. In its absence, the period runs from the date of the act or measure complained of. Where an applicant avails himself or herself of an existing remedy and only subsequently becomes aware of circumstances which render the remedy ineffective, the six-month time-limit is calculated from the date when the applicant first became, or ought to have become, aware of those circumstances (see, among other authorities, Zenin v. Russia (dec.), no. 15413/03, 24 September 2009). 32. In cases concerning disappearances, unlike in cases concerning ongoing investigations into the deaths of applicants’ relatives (see, for example, Elsanova v. Russia (dec.) no. 57952/00, 15 November 2005, and Narin v. Turkey, no. 18907/02, § 50, 15 December 2009), the Court has held that taking into account the uncertainty and confusion typical in such situations, the nature of the ensuing investigations implies that the relatives of a disappeared person may be justified in waiting lengthy periods of time for the national authorities to conclude their proceedings, even if the latter are sporadic and plagued by problems. However, where more than ten years have elapsed since the incident, the applicants have to justify the delay in lodging their application with the Court (see Varnava and Others, cited above, §§ 162-63). 33. Applying the Varnava and Others principles, the Court found in the case of Er and Others v. Turkey (no. 23016/04, §§ 55-58, 31 July 2012) that the applicants, who had waited almost ten years after the disappearance of their relative before lodging their application, had complied with the six‑month rule because an investigation was being conducted at the national level. The Court reached similar conclusions in another case, where the domestic investigation into the events had been pending for over eight years and where the applicants had been doing all that could be expected of them to assist the authorities (see Bozkır and Others v. Turkey, no. 24589/04, § 49, 26 February 2013). 34. On the other hand, the Court has declared inadmissible applications where the applicants waited for more than ten years to lodge their applications with the Court and where, for a long time, there had been no evidence allowing them to believe that the investigation would be effective. For instance, in the case of Yetişen and Others v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 21099/06, 10 July 2012), the applicants waited for four years after the disappearance before lodging an official complaint with the competent investigating authorities, and for eleven and a half years before bringing their application to Strasbourg; in the case of Findik and Omer v. Turkey (dec.), nos. 33898/11 and 35798/11, 9 October 2012, the applicants brought their applications to Strasbourg more than fifteen years after the events; and in the case of Taşçi and Duman v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 40787/10, 9 October 2012), the applicants applied to Strasbourg twenty-three years after the disappearance in question. In these cases, like in the case of Açış v. Turkey (no. 7050/05, §§ 41-42, 1 February 2011), where the applicants complained to Strasbourg more than twelve years after the pertinent disappearance, the Court rejected as out of time their complaints concerning the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the Convention for the failure to demonstrate any concrete progress in the domestic investigation to justify their delays of more than ten years. (b)  Application of the above principles to the present case
35.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 3
Outcome: no_violation