PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE SERGHIDES

1 . My only disagreement with the majority is that, unlike them (see paragraph 89 of the judgment), I do not find that the complaint under Article 18 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 should have been rejected as being incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention.

2 . From the wording of Article 18 it is clear that it applies only to rights and freedoms which are subject to restrictions permitted in the Convention (see Gusinskiy v. Russia , no. 70276/01, § 73, ECHR 2004 ‑ IV). The possible explanation for this is that an abuse or misuse of power is more likely to occur when a prescribed restriction is placed on a right. Such a restriction may open an outlet or a window for the national authorities to use the restriction for some purpose other than that for which it has been prescribed. Thus, such a restriction is prone to be manipulated. By contrast, absolute rights do not have such an Achilles ’ heel.

3 . The provisions of Article 6 § 1 regarding the public delivery of judgments have some restrictions or limitations expressly prescribed therein.

4 . The applicants alleged that they had been deprived of their right under Article 6 § 1 to have their judgment delivered in public (see paragraph 70 of the judgment). This provision of Article 6 § 1, as mentioned above, contains express restrictions as to when a judgment does not have to be pronounced publicly. To that extent, the right in question is not an absolute one, but is a relative or limited right in conjunction with which Article 18 can be applied. Therefore, the complaint based on Article 18 taken in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 should not have been rejected ratione materiae.

5 . It is irrelevant that it was eventually decided that it was not necessary to address separately the remainder of the applicant ’ s complaints under Articles 6 §§ 1 to 3 of the Convention, including the complaint in question (see paragraph 85 of the judgment). This is so because a breach of Article 18 can be found even if there has been no breach of the Article in conjunction with which it applies (see, inter alia , Gusinskiy , cited above, § 73, and Cebotari v. Moldova , no. 35615/06, § 49, 13 November 2007).

6 . The present case can be distinguished from Navalnyy and Ofitserov v. Russia (nos. 46632/13 and 28671/14, 23 February 2016), on which the judgment is based, since in that case there was no allegation similar to that raised in the present case and referred to in paragraph 4 above.

7 . Had I not been in the minority, the above finding would have led me to examine the Article 18 complaint on the merits, and had I found a violation of Article 18 I would probably have awarded non-pecuniary damage to the applicants for that violation. However, it is not my task to engage in any further speculation.

[1] The travaux préparatoires , or preparatory works, of a treaty are often consulted when interpreting the provisions of a treaty. According to Article 32 of the Vienna Convention, recourse may be had to supplementary means of interpretation, including the preparatory works of a treaty, when the interpretation of a treaty provision is ambiguous or obscure or it leads to a manifestly absurd or unreasonable result. Although the wording of Article 18 seems clear, reading it the way the majority do would create dissonance within the Convention and run counter to its original purpose, which can be gleaned from the preparatory works.

[2] . Statement of Lynn Ungoed-Thomas (United Kingdom) at the first session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 8 September 1949, in Collected Edition of the “Travaux Préparatoires” of the European Convention on Human Rights , Vol. 1 (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1975), pp. 59-60.

[3] . Statement of Lodovico Benvenuti (Italy) at the first session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 8 September 1949, in Collected Edition of the “Travaux Préparatoires” of the European Convention on Human Rights , Vol. 1 (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1975), pp. 179-80.

[4] . Collected Edition of the “Travaux Préparatoires” , op. cit. , Vol. 1: Preparatory Commission of the Council of Europe; Committee of Ministers, Consultative Assembly, 11 May - 8 September 1949, p. 200.

[5] . Ibid.