Published on 9 January 2023

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 55410/20 Ekaterina TSIVILSKAYA against Poland lodged on 8 December 2020 communicated on 15 December 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the expulsion of the applicant, a legal resident in Poland, on the grounds of national security and the alleged lack of sufficient procedural safeguards thereof.

The applicant, a Russian national, came to Poland in 2013 with her minor daughter (born in 2006). She was granted a residence permit for a limited period. Subsequently, in 2015 she married a Polish national, M.C.

On 20 April 2018 the head of the Internal Security Agency filed a classified application with the Minister of the Interior to have the applicant expelled from Poland on the grounds of national security. On 9 May 2018 the Minister of the Interior ordered the applicant’s immediate return to Russia and barred her for five years from re-entering Poland or any other country in the Schengen zone. The decision stated that as established by the Internal Security Agency the applicant had been engaged in espionage on behalf of Russia, which threatened the security of the State. Part of the reasoning was classified. The applicant was arrested on 17 May 2018 by the Cracow Balice Border Guard. She was expelled from Poland on a later, unknown date

The applicant’s subsequent appeals against the removal decision were dismissed by the Minister of the Interior on 19 July 2018 and then by the Warsaw Regional Administrative Court and the Supreme Administrative Court on 13 December 2018 and 26 February 2020, respectively. In her appeals the applicant submitted, inter alia , that she had not been granted access to the classified material which was the basis for the contested decision. During the proceedings the applicant’s lawyer specifically applied for access to the files. However, on 8 August 2018 the Minister of the Interior refused that request.

The applicant complains under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention about the procedural shortcomings in the domestic proceedings and, in particular, that she was not given the opportunity to be acquainted with, and to comment on, any evidence in her file. She further complains under Article 8 of the Convention that as a result of her expulsion she could not continue residing in Poland and was unable to exercise her right to family life.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the decision to expel the applicant, an alien lawfully in the territory of the respondent State, comply with the procedural requirements of Article 1 § 1 of Protocol No. 7?

2. Was the decision to expel the applicant necessary within the meaning of Article 1 § 2 of Protocol No. 7?

3. Did the applicant have at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention (see, for example, Ljatifi v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , no. 19017/16, §§ 43-45, 17 May 2018 and Muhammad and Muhammad v. Romania [GC], no. 80982/12, §§ 133 ‑ 157, 15 October 2020)?

4. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for her family life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention?