Published on 20 December 2021

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 75000/17 Yelena Valeryevna MILASHINA and Others against Russia

and 2 other applications (see list appended) communicated on 1 December 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASES

The applications chiefly concern alleged violations of the Novaya Gazeta’s journalists’ freedom of expression.

In particular, application no. 75000/17 concerns the alleged failure of the authorities to investigate death threats received by the applicants on account of revealing a large-scale violent campaign against LGBTI people reportedly run by Chechen authorities. The investigative authorities nine times refused to open a criminal case into the threats. The most recent refusal was upheld by the Stavropol Regional Court on 12 March 2019.

Application no. 26161/20 concerns administrative arrest of Novaya Gazeta’s journalist, Ms Milashina, during her picket in Moscow on 15 July 2019 and her subsequent conviction for violation of the procedure for a public event (an offence under Article 20.2 § 5 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The final decision in the case was delivered by the Moscow City Court on 24 September 2019.

Lastly, application no. 45687/21 concerns defamation proceedings brought by Ms. Y., a State Duma member, against Mr Muratov, the editor ‑ in ‑ chief of Novaya Gazeta, on account of his comment on her speech regarding the 2018 pension reform. By the final decision of 14 January 2021, the Supreme Court of Russia granted the defamation claim.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

I. Application no. 75000/17

1. Has there been a violation of the positive and (or) procedural obligations under Article 2 of the Convention in respect of the first, second and fourth applicants? In particular:

(a) Did the authorities comply with their positive obligations under that Article? More specifically, was there “a real and immediate risk” to the applicants’ lives which would be sufficient to trigger the duty of the authorities to take appropriate protective measures? Were the authorities aware of that risk? If so, did they do all that could reasonably have been expected of them to prevent that risk from materialising (see Dink v. Turkey , nos. 2668/07 and 4 others, §§ 66-75, 14 September 2010)?

(b) Did the authorities comply with their procedural obligations to conduct effective investigation as required by Article 2 of the Convention? More specifically, was there a procedural obligation on the part of the authorities to investigate the threats allegedly received by the applicants? If so, did they discharge that obligation (see Huseynova v. Azerbaijan , no. 10653/10, §§ 105-16, 13 April 2017)?

2. Has there been a violation of the positive and (or) procedural obligations under Article 8 of the Convention in respect of the first, second and fourth applicants on account of the alleged failure of the authorities to protect their psychological and physical integrity or investigate threats which they presumably received (see Kaboğlu and Oran v. Turkey , nos. 1759/08 and 2 others, §§ 72-90, 30 October 2018, and Khadija Ismayilova v. Azerbaijan , nos. 65286/13 and 57270/14, §§ 105-32, 10 January 2019)?

3. Were the threats allegedly received by the applicants linked to their journalistic activity? If so, did the situation give raise to the State’s positive and (or) procedural obligations under Article 10 of the Convention? If so, has there been a violation of those obligations in respect of the applicants (see Özgür Gündem v. Turkey , no. 23144/93, §§ 38-46, ECHR 2000 ‑ III; Dink , cited above, §§ 137-39; Huseynova, cited above, §§ 119-24; and Khadija Ismayilova , cited above, §§ 158-66)?

4. Have the applicants been discriminated against on the grounds of “other status” on account of the opinion which they expressed in the publications regarding abductions and extrajudicial killing of LGBTI people in Chechnya, this being in breach of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 10 of the Convention? Did the authorities discharge their positive and (or) procedural obligations under that Article?

II. Application no. 26161/20

5. Having regard to the well-established case-law of the Court, have there been violations of:

(i) Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the lack of a prosecuting party and excessively active role of the trial court, as alleged by the applicant, entail violations of the principles of the equality of arms, adversarial procedure and impartiality (see Karelin v. Russia , no. 926/08, 20 September 2016)?

(ii) Article 6 § 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention on account of the applicant’s conviction based on witness statements of police officers T. and V. who the applicant had no opportunity to question before domestic courts (see Frumkin v. Russia, no. 74568/12, §§ 100-42 5 January 2016, and Martynyuk v. Russia , no. 13764/15, §§ 19-30, 8 October 2019);

(iii) Articles 10 and (or) 11 of the Convention on account of the applicant’s administrative arrest and conviction related to her public picketing of 15 July 2019 (see Kasparov and Others v. Russia , no. 21613/07, §§ 82-97, 3 October 2013, and Frumkin , cited above, §§ 163 ‑ 68)?

III. Application no. 45687/21

6. Having regard to the well-established case-law of the Court (see Filatenko v. Russia, no. 73219/01, §§ 36-49, 6 December 2007, and Nadtoka v. Russia (no. 2) , no. 29097/08, §§ 41-50, 8 October 2019), has there been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention? In particular, did the national courts carry out a proper analysis of allegedly defamatory statements, arguments, and evidence put forward by the parties, and did they apply standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 10?

APPENDIX

No.

Application no.

Case name

Lodged on

Applicant Year of Birth Place of Residence

Represented by

1.

75000/17

Milashina and Others v. Russia

03/10/2017

(1) Yelena Valeryevna MILASHINA 1977 Moscow (2) Dmitriy Andreyevich MURATOV 1961 Moscow (3) NOVAYA GAZETA

1998 Moscow (4) Sergey Nikolayevich KOZHEUROV 1953 Moscow

Tumas Arsenovich MISAKYAN

Philip LEACH

Kate LEVINE

Jessica GAVRON

2.

26161/20

Milashina v. Russia

23/03/2020

Yelena Valeryevna MILASHINA 1977 Moscow

Aleksandr Yevgenyevich KARAVAYEV

3.

45687/21

Muratov v. Russia

30/06/2021

Dmitriy Andreyevich MURATOV 1961 Moscow

Yaroslav Sergeyevich KOZHEUROV