PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE KOVLER

(Translation)

I share the conclusion of the majority of the Chamber in finding a violation of Article 8 of the Convention, while regretting the fact that the Court, in following the same reasoning as in Slivenko v. Latvia ( [GC], no . 48321/99, ECHR 2003 ‑ X ) , found that “ the first two applicants can no longer claim the existence of a ' family life ' with the third applicant, who is an adult; the same is true of the ties between the three applicants and the family ' s elder daughter, Mrs Vizule ” (see paragraph 103 of the present judgment). I would therefore refer back to my dissenting opinion in Slivenko , adding that the applicants, who are of Udmurt ethnic origin, traditionally have much stronger family ties between parents and adult children than is appreciated in western Europe.

As to the question of the violation of Article 34 of the Convention on account of the questioning of the first applicant, Svetlana Sisojeva, by the security police on 6 March 2002 , I would point out that the Latvian Government admitted that Mrs Sisojeva had been summoned. The Government also conceded that some of the questions asked by the police officer related explicitly to the proceedings instituted by the applicants in Strasbourg (see paragraph 117). In addition, the Government did not expressly deny that any of the questions in the applicant ' s account had been asked by the police officer, nor did they present their own version of events. It should therefore be accepted that the applicant ' s account is accurate.

In its judgment the Court reiterated that it was of the utmost importance for the effective operation of the system of individual petition instituted by Article 34 of the Convention that applicants were able to communicate freely with the Court without being subjected to any form of pressure from the authorities to withdraw their complaints (see paragraph 120 and its references to the Court ' s case-law).

If we are to believe the first applicant ' s account (which was not disputed by the Government), she was questioned during the interview on her reasons for lodging an application with the Court and on her relationship with her lawyers. The judgment quite rightly states that “ the Court has serious doubts as to [the] necessity and relevance [of such questions], and has difficulty discerning a connection between acts of corruption allegedly committed by unidentified third parties and the present application ”, before adding that “the officer of the security police therefore exceeded the remit of the investigation by a considerable margin ” (paragraph 125). I regret the fact that, having implied its disapproval, the Court should then have confined itself to taking “an overall view” (paragraph 127), before concluding that the first applicant ' s complaint did not attain a sufficient level of severity (paragraph 129).

The alleged interception of the applicants ' telephone calls (“ an unsubstantiated and unproven assertion”) also deserved greater attention from the Court, in view of the strange telephone bills submitted by the applicants. As to the allegation that the Latvian authorities “ had intended to send the applicants to prison”, the Slivenko , Chevanova and, above all, Vikulov cases against Latvia are sad proof of the very real nature of such measure s against “ candidates” for expulsion. These facts (which amount in a sense to aggravating circumstance s ), taken together with the interview in question, do indeed constitute “ an overall view ” , namely the overall context of the complaint under Article 34.

I regret the fact that the Court, in the light of all these factors , did not find, as it has done on numerous occasions, that they amounted to a form of “ pressure ” and “ intimidation ” . I am not convinced that such a finding would result in a substantial extension of the State ' s obligations under Article 34.

JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES VAJIĆ AND BRIEDE

(Translation)

We regret that we are unable to subscribe to the conclusions and the reasoning of the majority in this case.

1. Article 8 of the Convention cannot be construed as guaranteeing as such the right to a particular type of residence permit. Whe re the domestic legislation provides for several different type s , the Court must analyse the legal and practical implications of issuing a particular permit . If it allows the holder to reside within the territory of the host country and to exercise freely the rights secured by Article 8 § 1 of the Convention, the granting of such a permit represents in principle a sufficient measure to meet the requirements of that provision (see, mutatis mutandis , Mehemi v. France (no. 2) , no. 53470/99, § 55, ECHR 2003 ‑ IV). We would observe that , in such case s, the Court is not competent to rule on whether the individual concerned should be granted one particular legal status rather than another, that choice being a matter for the domestic authorities alone .

In the present case, the Government contended that the applicants could regularise their status in Latvia at any time in accordance with the Directorate ' s decisions of 11 November 2003 . In their view, the first applicant qualified for the status of “ stateless person” within the meaning of the relevant Act . The second applicant could obtain a permanent residence permit after being issued with two temporary permits ; the third applicant, meanwhile, was entitled to a temporary residence permit (see paragraphs 32-36 of the judgment). For their part, the applicants considered this approach to be wholly inadequate and humiliating ( see paragraph 68). In their view, the only means of remedying their complaint was for the first applicant to be granted the status of “ p ermanently resident non-citizen” and the other two applicants to be issued automatically with permanent residence permits (paragraph 67).

2. In view of the measures taken by the Latvian authorities on 11 November 2003 , we have great difficulty in tracing any logical and convincing arguments in the judgment. By stating that the arrangements proposed by the Directorate are inadequate, the judgment is calling existing case-law into question in a radical manner on three fronts .

(a) First, it calls into question the case-law established by Vijayanathan and Pusparajah v. France , ( judgment of 27 August 1992, Series A no. 241 ‑ B ) , in which the Court found that in the absence of a formal expulsion order, in other words, where there was no imminent risk of expulsion, the applicants could not claim to be “victims” of the alleged violation. In the present case, no expulsion order was issued in respect of the applicants; what is more, the Directorate informed them officially in 2003 that they could regularise their stay in Latvia .

(b) It should also be borne in mind that, when alien s or stateless person s complain of their deportation or in a more general sense of their irregular status in the country, the issuing of a residence permit constitutes in principle an adequate and sufficient remedy (see, in particular , Pančenko v . Latvia (dec.), no. 40772/98, 28 October 1999; Bogdanovski v. Italy (dec.), no. 72177/01, 9 July 2002; S.F. v. Switzerland , no. 16360/90, Commission decision of 2 March 1994, DR 76, p. 13; and I.F. v. France , no. 22802/93, Commission decision of 11 December 1997, DR 91, p. 10). This holds true even if the applicant obtains satisfaction after the proceedings before the Court have begun, in accordance with the subsidiary nature of the Convention system of safeguards (see, mutatis mutandis , Preikhzas v . Germany , no. 6504/74, Commission report of 13 December 1978 , DR 16, p. 5, and Mikheyeva v. Latvia (dec.), no. 50029/99, 12 September 2002 ).

It is true that, even without any formal expulsion measure having been taken, the applicants found themselves in an uncertain and somewhat precarious situation which might in itself pose a problem under Article 8 of the Convention. However, in the Pančenko and Mikheyeva decisions cited above , the Court reiterated its settled case ‑ law. I n Mikheyeva it stated:

“In particular, where the applicant complains of his deportation or, more generally, of his irregular status within the country , the quashing of the deportation order against him and the granting of a residence permit are sufficient in principle for him no longer to be able to claim to be a “ victim ” within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention. ”

In the same decision the Court stated:

“That rule applies even if the applicant obtains satisfaction after the proceedings before the Court have commenced, in accordance with the subsidiary nature of the Convention system of safeguards. ”

(c) Finally, if it is assumed that the solutions proposed to the applicants by the Directorate were inadequate to remedy their complaint, we fail to see how this argument can be reconciled with the decision of 28 February 2002 on the admissibility of the present case. In that decision, the Court declared the complaints of the Sisojev family ' s elder daughter, Tat j ana Vizule, inadmissible in the following terms:

“ ... [I] n so far as the third applicant complains of the refusal of the Directorate to accord her the status of “permanently resident non-citizen”, the Court reiterates that the Convention does not lay down for Contracting States any given manner for ensuring within their internal law the effective implementation of the Convention ... Consequently, the Court considers that Article 8 does not extend to guaranteeing the person concerned a particular type of residence permit, provided that the solution proposed by the authorities allows him to exercise without hindrance his right to respect for his private and family life. In the instant case the Court observes that a permanent residence permit would allow the third applicant to live close to her family in Latvia for an indefinite period, and would therefore constitute an adequate safeguard to protect the rights enshrined in Article 8 of the Convention ... ”

It is true that, in the present case, the second and third applicants were not offered permanent residence permits at the outset. However, in our view , the decisive factor as regards the obligations under the Convention is the fact that the regularisation procedures proposed by the Government would allow the applicants to remain without hindrance within Latvian territory, to lead a normal social life there and to enjoy the rights enshrined in Article 8 of the Convention. T he choice of the practical means of achieving that is a matter first and foremost for the authorities in the respondent State, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity which underpins the entire Convention system. It should be noted in that context that the argument advanced in paragraph 54 of the judgment is contrary to the Court ' s case-law, which has never stated that applicants had the right to choose the method by which their stay in a State P arty to the Convention was regularised. The same applies to the argument of the majority (also in paragraph 54) endorsing the decisions of the first-instance courts despite being aware that the highest courts in the country had ruled otherwise.

3. In the instant case , despite the fact that the Directorate, in its letters of 17 May and 26 June 2000 , requested the applicants to leave the country – a request which was not in itself enforceable – no deportation order was issued in respect of the applicants ( see paragraph 85 of the judgment; for a similar situation, see Vijayanathan and Pusparajah v. France , cited above , p. 87 , § 46). Moreover, according to the Government, the Latvian authorities abandoned the idea of deporting the applicants, “ on grounds of proportionality ” . In view of the circumstances of the case, we see no reason to cast doubt upon that assertion.

In sum, we believe that the applicants currently face no real risk of deportation from Latvia and that it is still open to them to regularise their status in accordance with the procedures prescribed by domestic law. For those reasons, we felt unable to vote in favour of the finding of a violation of the Convention in the present case.