FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 18059/12 Zinaida Sergeyevna OZERSKAYA

against Ukraine

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 10 November 2021 as a Committee composed of:

Lətif Hüseynov, President, Lado Chanturia, Arnfinn Bårdsen, judges,

and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 March 2012,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

The applicant, Ms Zinaida Sergeyevna Ozerskaya, was born in 1951 and at the time of submission of the present application lived in Torez (Donetsk region).

The applicant’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning her alleged lack of access to a higher court in her administrative case were communicated to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), who submitted observations on the admissibility and merits. The observations were forwarded to the applicant, who was invited to submit her own observations. However, those submissions or any other correspondence could not be delivered to the applicant, since her last known address was in Torez, which has been outside the control of the Government of Ukraine since July 2014 and the Ukrainian postal service has suspended its operations there (see, for similar approach, Tsezar and Others v. Ukraine , nos. 73590/14 and 6 others, § 9, 13 February 2018). Several attempts to contact the applicant using the telephone number she indicated in her application form have proven futile.

The Registry has not received any correspondence from the applicant since March 2012 and the applicant has not provided any information about a possible change of her postal address.

THE LAW

The Court notes that given the absence of the Ukrainian postal services operating in the territories where the applicant declared her place of residence, it has no possibility to contact her. The Court is mindful of the fact that the applicant herself has not contacted the Court for a considerable amount of time. The Court finds that, in these circumstances, the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue her application, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine , the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the application.

In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

Done in English and notified in writing on 2 December 2021.

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Viktoriya Maradudina Lətif Hüseynov Acting Deputy Registrar President