CASE OF ZAKHARKIN v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 11 - Freedom of assembly and association (Article 11-1 - Freedom of peaceful assembly) read in the light of Article 10 - (Art. 10) Freedom of expression-{General} (Article 10-1 - Freedom of expression)
Alena Poláčková;Helen Keller;Pere Pastor Vilanova
4. The applicant was born in 1961 and lives in Surgut, KhantyMansiyskiy Region, Russia. 5. The applicant was the leader of a trade union in a private company. His co-workers expressed a wish to hold a public assembly on Constitution Day on 12 December 2009 and the applicant, in his capacity as trade union leader, decided to help them. According to him, such help was “an indirect expression of his own opinion”. The applicant distributed banners and explained that it would be more practicable to stage solo demonstrations. To avoid prosecution for holding a public assembly without notifying the authorities in advance, the applicant suggested that his co-workers position themselves at some distance from each other, for instance on different streets. At the time, there was no federal or regional statutory requirement concerning the minimum distance between simultaneous solo demonstrations (see “Relevant domestic law”). 6. The applicant was then arrested and taken to the police station, where he was held for three hours. 7. On 18 December 2009 a justice of the peace found him guilty under Article 20.2 § 1 of the Code of Administrative Offences (“the CAO”) and fined him 1,500 Russian roubles (RUB) (35 euros at the time). The court considered that the applicant and his co-workers had met in one place; the applicant had given instructions to the others and had distributed banners; he had taken them to the place of the demonstration. In the court’s view, the above circumstances disclosed the presence of a group event in the form of a static demonstration (a “picket”), and confirmed the applicant’s role as its organiser. Thus, it was incumbent on the applicant to lodge a prior notification about this event to the competent authority as required by section 7 of the Public Events Act (“the PEA”). 8. The applicant appealed noting that the PEA defined a “picket” as a form of public expression of opinion where one or more citizens with placards, banners and other means of visual expression stationed themselves near the target object of the “picket”. However, there had been a separate “target object” for each solo demonstrator; the demonstrators had been positioned at a considerable distance from each other (for instance, thirty metres for two of them); thus, he could not be lawfully considered as an organiser of a group event. 9. On 22 January 2010 the Surgut Town Court upheld the judgment.