FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF GANUSHCHAK v. UKRAINE(Application no. 40776/16)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG29 August 2024 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Ganushchak v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Mārtiņš Mits, President, María Elósegui, Kateřina Šimáčková, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the application (no. 40776/16) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 6 July 2016 by a Ukrainian national, Mr Mykola Dmytrovych Ganushchak (“the applicant”), who was born in 1959, lives in Tysovets and was represented by Mr B.V. Fokiy, a lawyer practising in Chernivtsi;the decision to give notice of the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, most recently Ms M. Sokorenko, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;the parties’ observations;Having deliberated in private on 4 July 2024,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The application concerns a complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about an allegedly unlawful punishment imposed on the applicant for a violation of customs regulations, namely bringing a car into Ukraine through the closed border checkpoint in Crimea.2. Following the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014 and the blocking of the operation of the state border crossing checkpoints located on the peninsula, the border between Russia and Crimea was closed by the Ukrainian authorities (Government Decree No. 424-r of 30 April 2014 “On Temporary Closure of State Border Crossing Points and Checkpoints”). Anyone travelling to or from the Crimean peninsula should pass through Ukrainian checkpoints on the mainland. The list of checkpoints was defined in Government Decree No. 367 of 4 June 2015 “On Approval of the Procedure for Entry into and Exit from the Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine” (entered into force on 10 June 2015).3. In May 2015 the applicant left Ukraine for Russia by car. On his way back, on 21 July 2015, he entered Ukraine via the “Caucasus-Crimea” ferry crossing in the city of Kerch. When he arrived at a checkpoint on the mainland, in the Kherson region, the border authorities issued two  administrative offence reports against the applicant, finding him liable for illegally crossing the border (Article 204-2 of the Code of Administrative Offences) and for transporting goods - the car driven by the applicant - by evading customs control (Article 482 of the Customs Code). The applicant appealed. In his written explanations given at the border, the applicant submitted that his way home via Crimea was shorter and that he had not known that the Ukrainian checkpoint in Crimea was not operational and that the peninsula was illegally occupied by Russia, otherwise he would have chosen another way.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 1
Outcome: violation