CASE OF GEORGIA v. RUSSIA (I)
Preliminary objection dismissed (Art. 35) Admissibility criteria;(Art. 35-1) Exhaustion of domestic remedies;Remainder inadmissible (Art. 35) Admissibility criteria;Violation of Article 38 - Examination of the case-{general} (Article 38 - Obligation to furnish all necessary facilities);Violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 - Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens-{general} (Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 - Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens);Violation of Article 5 - Right to liberty and security (Article 5-1 - Lawful arrest or detention);Violation of Article 5 - Right to liberty and security (Article 5-4 - Review of lawfulness of detention);Violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Degrading treatment;Inhuman treatment) (Substantive aspect);Violation of Article 13+5-1 - Right to an effective remedy (Article 13 - Effective remedy) (Article 5-1 - Lawful arrest or detention;Article 5 - Right to liberty and security);Violation of Article 13+3 - Right to an effective remedy (Article 13 - Effective remedy) (Article 3 - Degrading treatment;Inhuman treatment;Prohibition of torture);No violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 - Procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens (Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 7 - Expulsion of an alien;Lawfully resident);No violation of Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life (Article 8-1 - Respect for family life);No violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property (Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Deprivation of property);No violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 - Right to education-{general} (Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 - Right to education);Just satisfaction reserved
Anatoly Kovler;André Potocki;Ann Power-Forde;Christos Rozakis;Corneliu Bîrsan;Dmitry Dedov;Elisabeth Steiner;Françoise Tulkens;Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre;Jean-Paul Costa;Josep Casadevall;Karel Jungwiert;Khanlar Hajiyev;Luis López Guerra;Mark Villiger;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Nicolas Bratza;Nona Tsotsoria;Päivi Hirvelä;Peer Lorenzen;Rait Maruste;Renate Jaeger;Vincent A. De Gaetano;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
21. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. 22. Having regard to all the evidence submitted to the Court, it transpires that at the end of the summer of 2006 the political tensions between the Russian Federation and Georgia had reached a climax with the arrest on 27 September 2006 of four Russian officers in Tbilisi and the suspension by the Russian Federation on 3 October 2006 of all aerial, road, maritime, railway, postal and financial links with Georgia. Expulsions of Georgian nationals by the Russian Federation were already being reported in the international media at the end of September 2006, and those reports were then being relayed by various international governmental and nongovernmental organisations (see, inter alia, the report of 22 January 2007 by the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) “Current tensions between Georgia and Russia”, AS/Mon(2006)40 rev.; the report of October 2007 by Human Rights Watch (HRW) “Singled Out. Russia’s detention and expulsion of Georgians”, Volume 19 No. 5(D); and the report of April 2007 by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) “Migrants in Russia”, no. 472). 23. It has been established that during the period in question (from the end of September 2006 until the end of January 2007) Georgian nationals were arrested, detained and then expelled from the territory of the Russian Federation. 24. According to the applicant Government, these were reprisals following the arrest of the Russian officers in Tbilisi and Georgian nationals were expelled regardless of whether they were lawfully or unlawfully resident in the Russian Federation, simply because they were Georgian. 25. According to the respondent Government, the events relating to the arrest of four Russian officers in Tbilisi were entirely irrelevant to the facts set out by the applicant Government in their application. The Russian authorities had not taken any measures of reprisal against Georgian nationals, but had merely continued applying the statutory provisions for the prevention of illegal immigration in compliance with the requirements of the Convention and the Russian Federation’s international obligations. 26. The parties submitted conflicting statistical evidence regarding the number of Georgian nationals expelled during that period. 27. The applicant Government submitted in particular that between the end of September 2006 and the end of January 2007, 4,634 expulsion orders had been issued against Georgian nationals, of whom 2,380 had been detained and forcibly expelled, and the remaining 2,254 had left the country by their own means. They specified that between October 2006 and January 2007 there had been a sharp increase in the number of expulsions of Georgian nationals, which had risen from about 80 to 100 persons per month between July and September 2006 to about 700 to 800 per month between October 2006 and January 2007. At the witness hearing Mr Pataridze, Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation at the material time, stated that from the end of September 2006 the Georgian consulate in Moscow had been inundated with telephone calls and requests for assistance from relatives of persons detained, and that between 200 and 300 Georgian nationals had come to the consulate every day. He also said that there had been an increase in the number of travel documents (which were necessary to expel Georgian nationals) issued during that period, with the number rising from an average of 10 to 15 documents per day to 150 per day (see Annex, § 13). 28. The respondent Government, which stated that they had only annual or half-yearly statistics, said that, in 2006, 4,022 administrative expulsion orders had been issued against Georgian nationals, which was a 39.7% increase compared with 2005. However, during that year the highest number of administrative expulsion orders had been made against Uzbekistan nationals (6,089), followed by Tajik nationals (4,960) and Georgian nationals (4,022), who, in reality, were only in third place. Between 1 October 2006 and 1 April 2007, 2,862 Georgian nationals had been the subject of expulsion orders. They also indicated that during October 2006 four planes chartered by the Russian Federation had flown a total of 445 Georgian nationals from Moscow to Tbilisi, and that at the end of October and the beginning of December 2006 two planes chartered by Georgia had flown 220 Georgian nationals from Moscow to Tbilisi. At the witness hearing Mr Shevchenko, who had been Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control of the Federal Migration Service at the material time, said that on 6 October 2006 the flight had been with a cargo plane from the Ministry of Emergency Situations (IL 76), on 10, 11 and 17 October 2006 with a Russian airliner (IL 62 M), and on 28 October and 6 December 2006 with Georgian airliners (see Annex, § 23). 29. With regard to the international governmental and non-governmental organisations, they partly reproduced the figures submitted by the applicant Government (see, inter alia, the report of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – PACE report, § 56). Human Rights Watch (HRW), for its part, also referred, in its report, to an information note of 1 November 2006 of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation (HRW report, p. 37). According to HRW, that note indicated that between 29 September and 1 November 2006, 2,681 administrative expulsion orders were issued against Georgian nationals and 1,194 Georgian nationals were expelled. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) referred in its report to “thousands of arrests [of Georgian nationals], hundreds of detentions and expulsions to Georgia” after the incident of 27 September 2006 (FIDH report, p.23). 30. In support of their allegations, the applicant Government submitted a number of documents issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs (GUVD) of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and by the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation. These refer to two circulars: circular – приказ – no. 0215 of 30 September 2006 issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and circular – указание – no. 849 of 29 September 2006 issued by the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation. 31. These documents are the following: i. Three instructions of 2 and 3 October 2006 issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region: (a) The first instruction of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕08), sent by Mr V.J. Piotrovskiy, Acting Head of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Police Major General at the material time, to the heads of division of the directorate, is entitled “increasing the effectiveness of the implementation of GUVD circular no. 0215 of 30.09.2006 (§§ 6.1, 6.2 and 7)” and orders that “1. from 2.10. - 4.10.2006 and in cooperation with the territorial directorates of the Federal Migration Service for St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region including staff of all units, large-scale measures be undertaken to identify as many citizens (граждане) of the Republic of Georgia as possible who are unlawfully residing on Russian territory and deport them”; “2. to “initiate” (Инициировать) decisions before courts in cases of violations of the rules governing the residence of foreign citizens deporting only the above-mentioned category of citizens by placing them in detention in a reception and detention centre of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs (GUVD). The implementation of these measures is approved by the Directorate of the Federal Migration Service for St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region (UFMS) and the adoption of decisions is coordinated with the St Petersburg City Court and Leningrad Regional Court;” (the instruction in question also appears in the Annex to the PACE report and the HRW report, and is mentioned in the FIDH report, p. 26 (b) in fine). (b) The second instruction of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕13) and the third one (no. 122721∕17) of 3 October 2006 supplement the first one. The second one, sent by Mr S.N. Storozhenko, head of a division of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region at the material time, to the heads of district police departments for combating economic crime and of the Transport Department of St Petersburg, also refers to circular no. 0215. The third one, sent by Mr V.D. Kudriavtsev, Acting Head of Police of St Petersburg and of the Leningrad Region at the material time, to the heads of district police departments, orders the relevant authorities to submit daily reports on the number of Georgian nationals arrested for “administrative offences ... and violations of the regulations governing registration of home address”; ii. An order of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕11) by Mr Kudriavtsev, Acting Head of Police of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region at the material time, referring to the implementation of paragraph 3 of circular no. 0215; iii. An information note of 18 October 2006 issued by the Federal Migration Service applying circular no. 849 of 29 September 2006 of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation indicating the measures taken to reinforce supervision of the lawfulness of Georgian citizens’ residence in the Russian Federation: checks on employers recruiting Georgian citizens, checks on Georgian citizens who have committed the offences set out in Articles 18.8-18.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences, suspension of the issuing of certain documents to Georgian citizens (acquisition of Russian nationality, registration documents, temporary and permanent residence permits) and checks on the lawfulness of granting such documents (the information note also appears in the Annex to the HRW report). 32. The respondent Government submitted that all those instructions, the order and the information note had been falsified and disputed the content as alleged by the applicant Government of the two circulars nos. 0215 and 849 to which those documents referred. However, they confirmed the existence of the two circulars, but said that these could not be provided to the Court because they were classified “State secret”. At the witness hearing Mr Nikishkin, Deputy Head of the Legal Department, Ministry of the Interior, Moscow, at the time of the hearing, confirmed that the instruction of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕08) (see paragraph 31 above) purportedly issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region was a forged document and that the two circulars nos. 0215 and 849 (the latter actually being a telegram) were classified “State secret” and that they concerned a reference to various national criminal groups, but not a selective reference to Georgian nationals. They could not be disclosed because this was forbidden under Russian law (see Annex, § 21). 33. In his annual report of 2006 Mr V.P. Lukin, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation (Russian Ombudsman) at the material time, published the full text of the instruction of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕08), on which Mr V.J. Piotrovskiy’s name appears unsigned. The Commissioner said that the instruction had been sent to him by St Petersburg human rights activists and that it had been published by the local press. He commented as follows: “To call things as they are, this unprecedented document is evidence that ... most senior police official entered into an arrangement with the judicial authorities with the aim of obtaining unjustified judicial rulings in relation to – as yet unidentified – persons in breach of temporary residence procedures, ignoring the specific circumstances of each of them and on the sole basis that they were Georgian citizens.” He went on to say that he had asked the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation to check whether the document was genuine and, if so, “to take appropriate measures to bring the guilty to justice and revoke the blatantly illegal instructions contained in it” (Annual report of 2006 of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation, point 7 “Interethnic relations and human rights”). 34. In his letter in reply of 8 December 2006, Mr A.E. Buksman, Deputy General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation at the material time, said that it “was established that the law-enforcement authorities of St Petersburg and of the Leningrad Region regularly take measures aimed at revealing foreign nationals unlawfully residing in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. These measures are realised in accordance with the rules of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure, the Russian “OperationalSearch Activities” Act (Об оперативно-розыскной деятельности РФ) and departmental regulations including those constituting a State secret. In the current year 1,069 foreign nationals were sent back from St Petersburg to their countries; 131 of them had Georgian nationality. No cases of abuse of authority were revealed on the part of officers of the militia department.” 35. In his report the Commissioner described the reply from the Deputy General Prosecutor as follows: “in the best bureaucratic traditions the document gave no answer to any of the questions posed by the Commissioner. Instead, the “reply” from the Deputy General Prosecutor included a short report on the successes of the St Petersburg lawenforcement authorities and, in a reference to departmental regulations classified as “secret”, confirmed that there was no evidence of the employees having exceeded their authority. Whether this means that as a result the sub-departments of the Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region did not carry out their superior’s manifestly illegal directions remains unclear.” 36. The applicant Government also submitted two letters from the Directorate of Internal Affairs of two Moscow districts – Taganskiy (Head at the material time: Mr G.S. Zakharov) and Zapadniy (Deputy Head at the material time: Mr A.V. Komarov) – sent on 2 and 3 October 2006 to schools for the purpose of identifying Georgian pupils with the aim, among other things, of “ensuring public order and respect for the law, preventing terrorist acts and tensions between children living in Moscow and children of Georgian nationality (национальность)” (letter from Mr Zakharov). In a letter in reply dated 4 October 2006, the director of one of those establishments at the material time (Mr Engels) said that there was no register recording pupils on the basis of their nationality (the letters from Mr Zakharov and Mr Engels also appear in the Annex to the PACE and HRW reports). The sending of these requests for information was widely commented upon in the Russian media. 37. The respondent Government did not dispute the existence of the letters and even acknowledged that other requests of the same type had been sent to various schools at the beginning of October 2006 by the head of the Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Butyrskiy District of Moscow (Mrs N.V. Markova at the material time), on the ground that she wanted to identify cases of bribes paid to schools by illegal immigrants, and by the Head of the Juvenile Department of the Togliatti District in the Samara Region (Mrs S.V. Volkova at the material time), on the ground that she wanted to identify cases of children living in insalubrious conditions. The respondent Government submitted that the subsequent investigations had concluded that no such official instructions had been issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, where – in isolated cases – officials had been over-zealous, they had subsequently been punished for their illegal acts. The documents submitted by the respondent Government show that the officials in question were respectively reprimanded (выговор), downgraded and disciplined. At the witness hearing Mrs Kulagina, Inspector, Department for the Organisation of Activities of the District Police Officers and District Supervision Officers in respect of Minors, Main Division of the Interior, Samara Region, at the material time, and Mr Shabas, Deputy Head of the Department of the Interior, North-Eastern Administrative District, Moscow, at the material time, confirmed that information and explained how the official investigations had been carried out and the penalties imposed on Mrs Volkova and Mrs Markova among others (see Annex, §§ 19 and 22). 38. The respondent Government also submitted a letter of 5 December 2006 from the Deputy General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation to all prosecutors pointing out that various internal affairs directorates had acted unlawfully with regard to nationals of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He referred in particular to unjustified requests sent to schools for the purpose of identifying pupils of Georgian nationality and concluded the letter by inviting all prosecutors to intensify their supervision of the activities of those divisions with a view to guaranteeing respect for the rights and freedoms of nationals of the CIS. 39. The international governmental and non-governmental organisations, for their part, referred to coordinated action between the administrative and judicial authorities, with express reference to the instruction of 2 October 2006 (no. 122721∕08) and to circular no. 0215 of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region of 30 September 2006 (PACE report, §§ 55 and 71, HRW report, § 37, and FIDH report, pp. 26 and 27). At the witness hearing Mr Eörsi, rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee at the material time, said that the expulsion of such a large number of Georgian nationals within such a short space of time could not have been done without the knowledge and instructions of fairly highranking persons among the Russian authorities. 40. The FIDH indicated, moreover, that “human-rights and refugeesprotection organisations present in Russia consider that a campaign conducted in such an ostensible manner throughout Russian territory can only have been initiated on a written order from the hierarchy of the Ministry of the Interior. And whilst the top officials of the Federal Migration Service and the Ministry of the Interior have denied giving explicit repressive orders targeting Georgians, many members of the “Migration and Law” network of “Memorial” [Russian non-governmental human rights organisation] have seen in the regional departments or police stations written [instructions] containing all the elements present in the campaign. The case of the [secret circular issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region] and letters sent to schools in Moscow (see paragraphs 36 to 37 above) cannot be regarded as isolated cases” (FIDH report, pp. 28-29; for requests for information sent to schools, see also PACE report, Annex V, and HRW report, p. 37). 41. It is in dispute between the parties whether the Georgian nationals who were expelled had complied with the immigration rules in the Russian Federation during the period in question. Many international governmental and non-governmental organisations have stressed the complexity of those rules (see paragraph 76 below). 42. With regard to the Georgian witnesses who gave evidence at the witness hearing, even though their legal situation in the Russian Federation often appeared confused, the Court notes that a majority of them were formally unlawfully resident in the Russian Federation – some for a number of years – for various reasons (for example, no valid work permit, visa or registration certificate, often issued fraudulently – unbeknown to them – by the many private agencies operating fairly widely in the Russian Federation). They stated that their papers had indeed been checked on occasions in the past, sometimes resulting in the payment of a sum of money, but that this was the first time they had been arrested and forcibly expelled from Russian territory. 43. Mr Pataridze, Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation at the material time, said that the official procedures were difficult to carry out in practice and that many foreign nationals, including Georgians, had been tricked by private agencies, many of which acted illegally and even issued forged registration certificates. He added that in the Russian Federation recourse was commonly had to these private agencies, which advertised in all public places in the big cities (see Annex, § 13). 44. Mr Azarov, Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, and Mr Kondratyev, Inspector from the Division of Checkout Measures No. 2 in the same department at the material time, pointed out that only the official authorities were empowered to issue such documents and that they regularly published relevant information for the attention of foreign nationals. They confirmed the existence of such private agencies, but stressed that their activities were often illegal and were the subject of criminal proceedings, without, however, providing specific examples (see Annex, §§ 15 and 17). 45. Following the witness hearing, the impugned events may be summarised as follows: identity checks of Georgian nationals were carried out in the streets, markets and other workplaces and at their homes, and they were subsequently arrested and taken to police stations. After a period of custody in police stations (ranging from a few hours to one or two days, according to the witness evidence), they were grouped together and taken by bus to the courts, which summarily imposed administrative penalties on them and gave decisions ordering their administrative expulsion from Russian territory. Subsequently, after sometimes undergoing a medical visit and a blood test, they were taken to detention centres for foreigners where they were detained for varying periods of time (ranging from two to fourteen days according to the witness evidence), and then taken by bus to various airports in Moscow, and expelled to Georgia by aeroplane. It should be pointed out that some of the Georgian nationals against whom expulsion orders were issued left the territory of the Russian Federation by their own means. 46. The Georgian witnesses said that they had been arrested by Russian police officers on the pretext that their identity papers were not in order. They had often been unable to take their personal effects with them or inform their relatives. When they had asked why they were being arrested, they had been told that it was because they were Georgian and that there was an order from above to expel Georgian nationals (witness statements nos. 1, 2 and 3 – see Annex, §§ 5, 6 and 7). 47. Mr Azarov, Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, and Mr Kondratyev, Inspector from the Division of Checkout Measures No. 2 in the same department at the material time, said that their departments undertook, on the basis of information received, identity checks of foreign nationals or employers suspected of having broken the immigration rules in the Russian Federation. 48. The Georgian witnesses all stated that a very summary procedure had been followed before the courts. Often they had not even realised that they had been brought before a court (witness statements nos. 4, 5 and 6 – see Annex, §§ 8, 9 and 10). Whilst some of them mentioned an interview with a judge, lasting five minutes on average and with no real examination of the facts of the case (witness statements nos. 1 and 3 – see Annex, §§ 5 and 7), others said that they had not been admitted to the courtroom and had waited in the corridors, or even in the buses that had delivered them to the court (witness statements nos. 2 and 7 – see Annex, §§ 6 and 11), with other Georgian nationals (their number varied between 15 and 150). They said that they had then been ordered to sign the court decisions without having had an opportunity to read the contents or being able to obtain a copy of the decision. They had not had access to either an interpreter or a lawyer (witness statements nos. 1, 2 and 4 – see Annex, §§ 5, 6 and 8). As a general rule, both the judges and the police officers had discouraged them from appealing by telling them that there was an order to expel Georgian nationals, and in any event they had been so stressed at the idea of remaining in detention any longer and so eager to return to Georgia that they would have signed “anything at all”. When they had asked why they were being expelled, they had been told that it was because they were Georgians and that they should ask their President, Mr Saakashvili. 49. Mr Pataridze, Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation at the material time, said that Russian officials had privately told him that such appeals were pointless because the decision to expel Georgians from the Russian Federation was a political one (see Annex, § 13). 50. Mr Kondratyev, Inspector from the Division of Checkout Measures No. 2, Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, described the procedures before the courts as follows: the defendant was brought before a judge who informed him of his rights and obligations, asked him if he wanted an interpreter and a lawyer to be present, and, if so, his request was taken into account; the judge then asked the defendant questions about his particular situation, left the room and came back with the order. If it was an expulsion order, the defendant received a copy and was taken to the detention centre for foreigners with a view to his or her expulsion. He or she had ten days in which to appeal, even after being expelled from the Russian Federation, and that time-limit could be extended (see Annex, § 17). 51. Mr Manerkin, Head of the Division for Supervision of the Execution of Federal Legislation, Prosecutor’s Office, Moscow, at the material time, explained that at the relevant time his division had identified procedural irregularities particularly regarding the manner in which the Federal Migration Service had been drawing up reports on foreign nationals from a number of countries. In 22 cases those findings had led to the expulsion orders in question being set aside. He added that the General Prosecutor in charge of the Moscow Region had requested all his divisions to ensure that the rights of all foreign nationals were duly respected. He said that there had never been any instructions restricting the rights of Georgian nationals because that would be against the law, and even a crime under Russian law. 52. The Georgian witnesses spoke of “overcrowding”, “unbearable” and “inhuman” conditions of detention and appalling conditions of hygiene, and said that their fellow detainees had mainly been Georgian nationals, though there had sometimes been one or two other detainees of a different nationality. 53. They said that during their custody in the police stations, the cells, which were called “monkey cages”, had been tiny and overcrowded, that men and women had sometimes been detained together and that they had been unable to sit down (witness statements nos. 1 and 6 – see Annex, §§ 5 and 10). 54. They said that in the detention centres for foreigners the cells were also overcrowded: the description of the size of the cells ranged from 40 to 50 m2 for 100 detainees, 22 to 25 m2 for 23 detainees with 10 beds (witness statement no. 3), 6 x 8 footsteps for 30 detainees with 6 beds (witness statement no. 4), and 25 m2 with 40 detainees and 15 beds (witness statement no. 7). Other witnesses referred to tiny cells with 7 or 8 detainees (witness statements nos. 1 and 6) or with 45 detainees and 6 beds (witness statement no. 5 – see Annex, §§ 7, 8, 11, 5, 10 and 9). The beds had consisted merely of iron bars or very thin mattresses and no blankets; the detainees had had to take it in turns to sleep; a bucket had served as a toilet and had not been separated from the rest of the cells; and there had been no decent water or food. 55. Mr Pataridze, Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation at the material time, said that he and his team had visited more than a dozen detention centres in various regions of the Russian Federation, including those of St Petersburg and Moscow. He confirmed that there had mainly been Georgian nationals detained in all the centres, that the cells were overcrowded, the conditions of detention very difficult, the hygiene appalling, and that there were too few beds and mattresses. Only the detention centre no. 1 of Moscow (model centre shown to journalists) offered better conditions of detention, though it too was overcrowded (see Annex, § 13). 56. Mr Azarov, Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, said that he was in charge of the eight detention centres in Moscow and that he had visited all of them: the conditions of detention were the same for all foreigners, namely, large cells of approximately 50 m2, with beds, separate toilets, running water and hot meals served three times per day (see Annex, § 15). Other Russian witnesses said that there had never been any complaints by the Consul of Georgia or by Georgian nationals regarding the conditions of detention. 57. The Georgian witnesses stated that they and other Georgian nationals had been taken by bus, accompanied by officers from the Russian special police force (OMON), to various Moscow airports from which they had been expelled by aeroplane to Tbilisi. They said they had been humiliated by OMON officers, such as being obliged to pay in the bus before being allowed to relieve themselves or smoke or take their personal effects (witness statements nos. 3, 4, 5 and 7 – see Annex, §§ 7, 8, 9 and 11), and subsequently having to walk or even run towards the aeroplane with their hands behind their back in human corridors formed by OMON officers. The first Georgian nationals to be expelled had been flown in a cargo plane (on 6 October 2006), and the next ones in airliners (on 10, 11 and 17 October 2006). Although the conditions of transport in the airliner had been acceptable, those in the cargo plane had been very rudimentary: the Georgian witnesses said that there had been two rows of benches on which women and children (twenty or so) had sat, with the men sitting on the floor or having to stand, and that a sort of tub had served as a toilet and had circulated between the rows. The estimated number of Georgian passengers in the planes varied between 80 and 150. 58. Mr Kondratyev, Inspector from the Division of Checkout Measures No. 2, Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, said that the cargo planes resembled airliners with slightly less comfort; in any event they had been equipped with seats or benches and with safety belts, and water and food had been served on board, and there had been toilets fixed to the floor. He had himself accompanied the cargo plane flight on 6 October 2006, and explained that the flight had lasted about three hours, that there had been about 150 passengers on board and they had not complained about the conditions of transport but had thanked the members of his department on arrival in Tbilisi. On the way back, the same plane had flown Russian nationals from Georgia to the Russian Federation. 59. Mr Azarov, Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control, Federal Migration Service, Moscow, at the material time, had been present at Zhukovskoe and Domodedovo Airports and had boarded two planes carrying Georgian nationals being expelled to Georgia. He said that the planes had been equipped with seats and benches, and that water and dry biscuits had been served on board. 60. Mr Shevchenko, Deputy Head of the Department of Immigration Control of the Federal Migration Service at the material time, stated that he had been present at the airport when the Georgian nationals were expelled and stressed that there had been no baggage restrictions; on the contrary they had had their personal effects on them and the media had been present. Subsequently, in a letter of thanks sent by the Consul of Georgia to the head of the Federal Migration Service of the town of Derbent (Dagestan) the former had congratulated the Russian authorities on their good co-operation during the expulsion procedures, and had not filed a claim. 61. The Georgian witnesses stressed that they were relieved to be back in Georgia and did not envisage appealing against the expulsion orders to the consulate or embassy of the Russian Federation in Tbilisi. In any case, during the procedures before the courts in the Russian Federation both the judges and the police officers had told them several times that it was pointless to appeal because there was an order from above to expel Georgian nationals. Some also referred to practical obstacles such as the closure of the Russian consulate in Tbilisi, while others spoke of long queues outside the consulate. 62. Mr Vasilyev, Consul of the Russian Federation in Georgia at the material time, said that after the repatriation of some of the diplomatic staff of the Tbilisi embassy and consulate to the Russian Federation at the end of September 2006 the embassy had continued operating normally, during the usual opening hours (9 a.m. – 4 p.m.), with a reduced workforce of fifteen people (diplomats and administrative staff) at the embassy and three diplomats at the consulate. The Georgian nationals could therefore have lodged appeals or complaints – personally, or through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia – which would have been transmitted to the appropriate authorities in the Russian Federation, but no appeal or complaint had been lodged. After diplomatic relations between the two countries had been broken off, from March 2009, the Russian Federation had kept an office open at the Swiss embassy in Georgia and Georgia had also kept one open at the Swiss embassy in the Russian Federation. The respective diplomats of both countries could have been contacted there (see Annex, § 24). In their letter of 15 April 2011 the respondent Government confirmed that following the evacuation of some of their diplomatic staff at the end of September 2006, ten members of the diplomatic staff had continued working at the Russian embassy in Tbilisi and three at the consulate. 63. The PACE Monitoring Committee referred to a “selective and intentional persecution campaign based on ethnic grounds, which clearly goes against the spirit of Article 14 and of Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties (ECHR) ... in which this group is clearly targeted through special militia operations to hunt down its population on streets, markets or in front of strategic places (Georgian consulate in Moscow, Georgian Orthodox Church) ...” (PACE report, §§ 52-53). 64. Non-governmental organisations referred to “massive operations of control and repression directed against Georgians of Moscow and other Russian cities” (FIDH report, point II “the anti-Georgian campaign of autumn 2006”, p. 20). Georgian nationals and “ethnic Georgians” were allegedly victims of a deliberate policy of detention and expulsion (HRW report, p. 1). 65. HRW cited the comments of Mrs Ella Pamfilova, then Head of the President’s Advisory Council on Human Rights and Civil Society in the Russian Federation (State body advising the Russian President on all matters relating to civil society and human rights), who said that “administrative and legal measures applied [against Georgians] are unfounded: businesses employing ethnic Georgians are being closed down, visas and registration papers legally obtained by Georgian nationals are being cancelled, people are being illegally detained and [expelled] from Russia” (statement of 8 November 2006, p. 30 of the report). 66. Mrs Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the same advisory council, and Head of the “Migration and Law” network and Chairperson of the Civic Assistance Committee, and member of the board of the “Memorial” Human Rights Centre, at the material time, said in 2006 that there had been “organized persecution of Georgian nationals”. She considered that such “harassment of a specific group of people [was] a form of inadmissible discrimination [that could] in no way be viewed as a legal method of fighting illegal migration” (speech in the European Parliament on 21 November 2006). 67. Other European institutions also expressed their concern regarding the large number of Georgians expelled and asked the Russian authorities to revoke all the measures taken against Georgian nationals residing on their territory (speech of 25 October 2006 by Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, member of the European Commission for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy; Joint motion for a resolution of 6 March 2007 of the European Parliament on the situation in South Ossetia, points I. and 11 and 12; Statement of 15 December 2006 of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)). 68. The PACE Monitoring Committee said that the “routine of expulsions” followed a recurrent pattern all over the country: “Georgians stopped in the street under the pretext of examination of their documents were detained no matter whether their documents were in order or not and taken to the Militia stations where they were gathered in large groups and delivered to courts, where decisions on administrative penalty with expulsion of the territory of Russia were made in accordance with preliminary agreement with the courts, with no lawyers and without the courts looking into individual circumstances, the entire procedure taking from two to ten minutes. Often people, subjected to these measures, were not admitted to the trial room, detainees were kept in corridors or even in cars in which they were delivered there” (PACE report, § 59). 69. That description tallies with that of the FIDH and HRW (FIDH report, pp. 23-26 under II-2 “Development of the crisis and type of persecutions” a) “Control and arrest operations”, b) “Flagrant denial of justice and circumvention of the procedures”, and HRW report, pp. 40-53 under “Arbitrary and illegal detention and expulsion of Georgians”). 70. According to HRW, “while many expelled [Georgian nationals] may technically have had a judicial decision ordering their expulsion, the manner in which those decisions were reached (some in group trials), the lack of representation and capacity to mount a proper case against the expulsion, and the fact that many were effectively denied the right to appeal, points to Russia’s failure to comply with its ECHR obligations” (HRW report, p. 13). 71. The FIDH, for its part, indicated that “the persons arrested were taken in groups to the courts, which in a few minutes ordered them to be expelled from Russia, preceded by a period of detention in a temporary detention centre for foreign citizens (TsVSIG), regardless of the conditions or the individual’s family situation” (FIDH report, p. 25). It added that a lawyer from “Civic Assistance”, a Russian association, “witnessed on several occasions mass miscarriages of justice during the campaign: not only did the arrestees have no right to a lawyer, but they were most frequently brought in groups to the courts by police officers. Once there, the judges dealt with the cases as though on a production line and usually without those concerned by the expulsion orders being present and without even having regard to the circumstances of each case. These notices of expulsion were presented to the detainees; many signed thinking that they were signing a fine as part of a range of possible administrative penalties for offences against the immigration rules. On several occasions the persons concerned were discouraged in advance from appealing against the order on the ground that “it would make matters worse”. In some cases “agreements” were signed in the deportees’ place” (FIDH report, p. 26). It also stated that “a number of factors point to collusion between the police and the judicial authorities, establishing that this policy was devised in advance: in Moscow evidence of collusion between the police and the courts lies in the fact that the latter had not listed any other cases during the periods when the police brought Georgians before the courts. They were arrested at 9 a.m. and presented as a group before the courts at 10 a.m. The judges gave a larger number of decisions in a few days than they normally give in six months” (FIDH report, p. 26). 72. With regard to the conditions of detention and expulsion, the PACE Monitoring Committee referred to the witnesses it had heard during the mission undertaken by the co-rapporteurs who spoke of “overcrowding” and “unbearable” and “inhuman” conditions of detention. They had allegedly been deprived not only of medical assistance but also of any possibility of satisfying their basic needs. That situation had resulted in the death of a 48-year-old Georgian citizen, Tengiz Togonidze, who, according to witnesses, suffered from asthma. After being detained for two weeks without medical assistance and without being able to go out into the fresh air, he had died after a journey lasting several hours between the detention centre in St Petersburg and Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport on 17 October 2006. The Deputy Head of the Federal Migration Service at the material time, Mr Turkin, said that the detention facility in question was being closed down. The Monitoring Committee also referred to the case of a second Georgian national, Manana Jabelia, aged 52, who had died on 2 December 2006 in Moscow detention centre no. 2 after two months of inadequate medical assistance and after being refused urgent medical aid (PACE report, § 60). Lastly, the Monitoring Committee referred to the conditions in which Georgian nationals had been transported by cargo flights at the beginning of October 2006. This had been done in violation of the norms of the International Civil Aviation Organisation as such transportation of passengers was life-threatening (PACE report, § 57). 73. The FIDH specified that there were “eight temporary detention centres for foreigners (TsVSIG) in Moscow and the surrounding areas, which were mainly converted former sobering-up cells. Centres no. 1 (Novoslobodskaya district), no. 2 (in Peredelkino) and no. 8 (in Mnevniki) were visited by staff from the “Civic Assistance” Committee. In front of the one on Dimitrovskoe Chaussée Street, there was a queue of police cars nearly 2 km long waiting to offload arrested persons at a centre with space for about 320 people. Detainees said that there had been sixteen people instead of eight per cell, and that the food rations had not been increased. Moreover, there had been so many people that the TsVSIG had not even had time to draw up the documents discharging detainees.” The FIDH also referred to four cases of death in detention or during the journey prior to expulsion (FIDH report, pp. 26-27 under (c) “Conditions of detention and deaths in detention”). 74. HRW reported similar facts and also referred to four cases of death in detention (HRW report, pp. 53-57 under “Deaths of Georgians in custody”, and pp. 57-63 under “Inhuman and degrading treatment”). On the first point HRW also referred to the case of Mr Togonidze and that of Mrs Jabelia, who had allegedly been subjected to very tough conditions of detention and not been given the necessary medical assistance, which had resulted in their death. The case of two other Georgian nationals who had died in detention was also mentioned. Furthermore, the Russian authorities had allegedly failed to carry out sufficient investigations following those deaths despite their obligation to do so under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. On the second point HRW indicated that many Georgian nationals had been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment on account of the poor conditions of detention and expulsion (overcrowded cells, lack of water and food, and transporting more than a hundred Georgian nationals by cargo plane). 82. Before undertaking an examination on the merits and an assessment of the evidence on the basis of each complaint, the Court will set out all the written and oral evidence to which it has had regard and the principles of assessment that it will apply. 83. In order to establish the facts the Court has based itself on the parties’ observations and the many documents submitted by them and on the statements of the witnesses heard in Strasbourg. 84. It has also had regard to the reports by international governmental and non-governmental organisations such as the PACE Monitoring Committee, HRW, the FIDH and the annual report of 2006 of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Russian Federation (Russian Ombudsman). Some of the documents submitted by the applicant Government also appear in these reports. 85. Furthermore, in letters of 28 June 2010 and 8 March 2011 and during the witness hearing the Court requested the respondent Government to produce the following additional documents: i) monthly statistics regarding the expulsion of Georgian nationals during the years 2006 and 2007, to enable a comparison to be made between expulsions before and after the month of October 2006, during which mass arrests and expulsions of Georgian nationals allegedly began; the respondent Government replied that they kept only annual and half-yearly statistics that they had submitted to the Court; ii) the two circulars nos. 0215 and 849 of the end of September 2006 that had been issued by the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation respectively and to which the documents submitted by the applicant Government refer; the respondent Government disputed the authenticity of those documents and said that they could not submit the circulars in question because they were classified “State secret” (see paragraph 32 above); iii) the files relating to the disciplinary proceedings brought against Russian officials who had sent requests to various Russian schools asking for lists of Georgian pupils; the respondent Government submitted a copy of several documents indicating that disciplinary penalties had been imposed on the officials in question; iv) statistics on the number of decisions given on appeal by the Russian courts against decisions expelling Georgian nationals during the period in question (October 2006 to January 2007); in their letter in reply of 15 April 2011 the respondent Government again said that they did not have monthly statistics relating to the expulsion of Georgian nationals (the nationality of perpetrators of administrative offences did not appear in the statistics of ordinary courts and an electronic database for the entire Russian Federation had existed only since 2010), but that they could nonetheless provide information obtained manually for the period concerned from the courts of eighteen regions of the Russian Federation by providing the Court with copies of 86 appeal decisions. It should be mentioned that only 42 of these decisions concern Georgian nationals expelled during the period in question, 21 of which set aside decisions of the courts of first instance. Moreover, of the 86 appeal decisions submitted to the Court, only 8 concerned the City of Moscow and 17 the City of St Petersburg, whereas the majority of expulsions of Georgian nationals took place in those two cities. Lastly, one appeal decision out of the 8 concerning Moscow and 12 appeal decisions out of the 17 concerning St Petersburg concerned referrals back to the administrative authorities on the ground that the police officers had taken the Georgian nationals directly to the courts without first taking them to the Federal Migration Service as provided for by law. 86. During the week 31 January to 4 February 2011 the delegation of judges of the Grand Chamber heard a total of twenty-one witnesses, nine of whom had been proposed by the applicant Government, ten by the respondent Government and two chosen by the delegation. 87. The nine witnesses proposed by the applicant Government (except witness no. 8, wife of the late Mr Togonidze and who was an “indirect” witness to the events, and Mr Pataridze, Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation at the material time) are Georgian nationals who were arrested, detained and expelled by the Russian authorities. Their evidence concerned the conditions of arrest, detention and expulsion in the autumn of 2006. 88. The ten witnesses proposed by the respondent Government are public officials of the Russian Federation, whose evidence concerned in particular the conditions of arrest, detention and expulsion of Georgian nationals, statistical data and the authenticity of the instructions issued by the Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and the circulars to which they refer. 89. The two witnesses chosen by the Court are Mr Eörsi, rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee at the material time, and Mr Tugushi, a human-rights official with the OSCE mission in Georgia at the material time. 90. The delegation had also planned to hear other witnesses, including Mr Piotrovskiy, Acting Head of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region at the material time, and presumed signatory to the instruction of 2 October 2006 aiming to “[increase] the effectiveness of the implementation of ... circular no. 0215 of 30.09.2006” (see paragraph 31 above). The day before his hearing the representative of the respondent Government indicated that Mr Piotrovskiy had been urgently admitted to hospital and submitted a hospital certificate to that effect. 91. The delegation had also wanted to hear Mr Lukin, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation at the material time, but he did not reply to the Court’s summons. 92. Lastly, the delegation had also wanted to hear Mrs Pamfilova, Head of the President’s Advisory Council on Human Rights and Civil Society in the Russian Federation at the material time. However, it was not possible to hear her as a witness because, as explained in a letter of 15 October 2010, the respondent Government informed the Court that Mrs Pamfilova was no longer a public official but a private individual and that they were therefore unable to provide the Court with her address. It should be reiterated here that Contracting Parties have an obligation to serve any summons on a witness residing on its territory (see Rule A5 § 4, first sentence, of the Annex to the Rules of Court). 93. In assessing evidence the Court has adopted the standard of proof “beyond reasonable doubt” laid down by it in two inter-State cases (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, § 161, Series A no. 25, and Cyprus v. Turkey [GC], no. 25781/94, § 113, ECHR 2001IV) and which has since become part of its established case-law (see, inter alia, Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia [GC], no. 48787/99, § 26, ECHR 2004VII, and Davydov and Others v. Ukraine, nos. 17674/02 and 39081/02, § 158, 1 July 2010). 94. However, it has never been its purpose to borrow the approach of the national legal systems that use that standard in criminal cases. The Court’s role is to rule not on guilt under criminal law or on civil liability but on Contracting States’ responsibility under the Convention. The specificity of its task under Article 19 of the Convention – to ensure the observance by the High Contracting Parties of their engagements to secure the fundamental rights enshrined in the Convention – conditions its approach to the issues of evidence and proof. In the proceedings before the Court, there are no procedural barriers to the admissibility of evidence or predetermined formulae for its assessment. It adopts the conclusions that are, in its view, supported by the free evaluation of all evidence, including such inferences as may flow from the facts and the parties’ submissions. According to its established case-law, proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact. Moreover, the level of persuasion necessary for reaching a particular conclusion and, in this connection, the distribution of the burden of proof are intrinsically linked to the specificity of the facts, the nature of the allegation made and the Convention right at stake. The Court is also attentive to the seriousness that attaches to a ruling that a Contracting State has violated fundamental rights (see, inter alia, Nachova and Others v. Bulgaria [GC], nos. 43577/98 and 43579/98, § 147, ECHR 2005-VII, and Mathew v. the Netherlands, no. 24919/03, § 156, ECHR 2005IX). 95. In establishing the existence of an administrative practice, the Court will not rely on the concept that the burden of proof is borne by one or other of the two Governments concerned, but will rather study all the material before it, from whatever source it originates (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom and Cyprus v. Turkey, cited above, ibid.). In addition, the conduct of the parties in relation to the Court’s efforts to obtain evidence may constitute an element to be taken into account (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom; Ilaşcu and Others; and Davydov and Others, cited above, ibid.).